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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22776058">Blood Red Skies</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aegis_Di/pseuds/Aegis_Di'>Aegis_Di</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Zootopia (2016)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Crimes &amp; Criminals, Detective Noir, F/M, Femme Fatale, Hardboiled, Movie: Shoot To Kill (1988), Movie: The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Murder Mystery, Police Procedural, Psychological Drama, Rangers, Serial Killers, Slow Burn, Suspense, Wilderness Survival</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 14:48:07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>23,663</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22776058</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aegis_Di/pseuds/Aegis_Di</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A hard-boiled noir thriller set fifteen years after the Night Howler events. Detective Judy Hopps is a chain-smoking ZPD detective, married to her job. Desperately lonely, she has been reduced to fantasizing about a certain foxy park ranger that she meet while teaching a summer course on behavioral sciences at the ZPD Academy. A year later, she is called out to the field to investigate the work of a serial killer, and finds herself thrust into a working relationship with the same fox that haunts her dreams.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Judy Hopps &amp; Nick Wilde</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>96</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>189</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Gumshoes and Gaiters</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I've come to accept that I'm good at writing hard boiled thrillers, not so much fluffy/sappy stuff, and this particular dark story has been bouncing around my head for months.  A series of what-ifs percolate through the story:  What if Nick had been accepted as a Junior Scout, never ending up a hustler on the streets of Zootopia, but instead found purpose as a park ranger?  What if Judy had never met him when she had still been a starry eyed rookie?   What would their relationship look like if they encountered each other later on as much older adults, set in their ways and glued to their faults?</p><p>This is a Zootopia murder mystery set 15 years later after the Night-Howler event, hard-boiled and violent at times, and sweet and awkward at others.  I've thrown in some "Silence of the Lambs", a little known movie from 1988 called "Shoot to Kill", and Tom Brown's wilderness survival books, and mixed it all about.</p><p>This work won't update as often as my other Zootopia Thriller, The Measure of a Mammal, but I'll try to put out a short 1500 word chapter as often as possible.</p><p>04/12/20 - After a month's break due to being declare "essential" and working my tail off at my day job, I'm back to writing now, and looking forward to more of the adventures of Detective Hopps and her fox fatale, Ranger Nick Wilde.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Languidly, his green eyes laughing, he slid his crimson paw down her ivory navel and hooked a claw under the hem of her panties. She sighed as he tugged slowly up against the elastic, pulling it tighter and tighter against her mound, until at last it slipped down into her slit and... </em>
</p><p>
  <strong>BEEP… BEEP… BEEP…</strong>
</p><p><em>DAMN IT! </em>She screamed to herself, as she jolted to full wakefulness.</p><p>
  <strong>THWACK!</strong>
</p><p>A small gray paw slammed down on the old digital alarm, cutting off it's shrill clarion. The owner of the paw groaned painfully into her pillow, before raising her bleary eyes in to stare at the display in unfocused disbelief. It couldn't be time to get up yet, not yet. She was having SUCH a nice dream, only to have it rudely interrupted by a cheap mechanical nanny.</p><p>She slid to the edge of her bed and sat upright in the pre-dawn darkness, rubbing her eyes with the back of her paws. As she sat there, she pondered the laughing fox that tormented her dreams for the past year. She wasn't sure what her subconscious found so goddamn attractive about the damn vulpine: his scent, his broad paws, strong arms, or maybe it was those canine teeth.</p><p>
  <em>Maybe it's just the simple fact he is completely unavailable, out of town and out of your life. Face it, Judy. Every adult relationship you've ever had in the past fifteen years has ended in tears and scorched earth. The best relationship you could ever have with him exists only in your fantasies. Besides which, you know next to nothing about him, where he is or what he does. You have no idea if he'd even be interested in such a sad, lonely, and desperate bunny like me.</em>
</p><p>She had met the fox known as Ranger Nick Wilde last year while she was teaching a summer course at the academy on criminal psychological profiling. He had been part of a group sent over by the Parks and Rec department to update their investigative skills. Criminal gangs, squeezed out of their territories on the Zootopian streets by the ZPD, had been moving their activities further afield. One of those most affected by this change had been the Parks division, where they had to contend with clandestine and illegal grow operations as well as increases in smuggling of contraband through the swamps and forests that border Zootopia.</p><p>Chief Bogo had arranged the course work in his quest to reduce the amount of overtime his burdened department had to pay to send officers out into the field. Detective Judy Hopps, for all of her sins, had been tapped to teach one of those classes. It had been a very trying ordeal for Judy. Not because they were raw and ignorant recruits, far from it. The vast majority of the rangers had been model students, straight from the ranger recruitment posters. Attentive, alert, and respectful.</p><p>All except… Him. She could swear that he thought everything was a joke. She just couldn't impress upon him the seriousness of his training. He was disruptive, never took notes, and generally worked as little as possible. He always knew, just knew, how to say just the right thing at the right time to leave her completely flummoxed at the podium, the rest of the class tittering away as she froze in those great green headlights of his.</p><p>But some how, some way, he passed every test she threw at him with flying colors, even earning high marks from all of his other instructors. She was sure he was cheating, somehow, but she couldn't pin down how. She tried taking it up with the academy instructors overseeing the summer program, but they eventually turned up nothing in their investigation. He just blew sunshine up their collective asses and came out of it smelling of violets and victory.</p><p>She hated him. Really, really hated him. She had been so pleased when the summer course work had come to an end, and he went back to his beloved forests, and left her to return to her detective work in blessed silence. Her life was so peaceful without his snark echoing in the back of her head.</p><p>And then the dreams had begun, and somehow, somewhere, she began to realize an ugly, horrible truth. She also wanted him. Desperately. Wanted all that creative attention he had showered on her. Craved it. She found that the blessed silence that she had retreated back into as she returned to her work in the concrete jungle had turned into crushing loneliness. She missed him terribly like no other mammal before him.</p><p>But every time she tried to run a scenario through her mind it just would end up going sideways. <em>Hi, Nick? Ranger Nick? Remember me? The short acidic cop with a nicotine addiction that tried to fail you last year for being a jackass in class ? Well, you've been in my erotic dreams for over a year, and I was wondering, since I have n't been laid in the past year, if I could take you back around that tree there and yank off your pants so that I can have my way with your canine genitalia?! I want to see if it's as big in real life as it is in my dreams! </em></p><p>
  <em>Um… No. What a great way to get a restraining order, Detective Hopps! I can just see Chief Bogo now, sighing as he sits at his desk trying to explain to me the difference between expressing romantic interest in someone and criminal stalking. </em>
</p><p>With a sigh, she hopped down out of the bed and walked over to her dresser. Slipping off her soaked panties, she dumped them in the hamper on the wall, and ducked into her bathroom for a quick, and very cold, shower.</p><hr/><p>Judy slowly stalked down the sidewalk toward ZPD Precinct 1, the collar of her dark ZPD trench coat turned up against the bite of the chill early spring wind, a stubborn cigarette smoldering in her lips. She paused at the lone ashtray, set the legal sixty feet from the entrance, and determinedly puffed the last of the peppermint and catnip blend that she imbibed in lieu of breakfast. She'd grab some coffee before she got to her desk, and if she was really hungry maybe a stale doughnut to nibble on, before going over patrol reports turned in last night, looking for subtle patterns. Maybe if she's lucky she'll find something interesting, like a smuggling gang transporting stolen artwork or a serial murderer operating in Tiny Town. Something, anything, to take her mind off of her lonely bed and aching chest.</p><p>She walked up to the small mammal door and hit the handicap button, opening the door to an expansive lobby that had been the first room she's seen every work day for the past fifteen years. Once the lobby had been a magical place, where she would have walked in and been filled with a sense of mission and purpose, but now it was just another mundane room filled with all sorts of mammals that ignored her as they rushed back and forth, intent on their duties for which she cared not.</p><p>"<strong>HOPPS!"</strong></p><p>Judy's eyes snapped up at the sound of her Chief's bellow. Out of pure knee-jerk habit, she glanced up at the balconies that ran overhead, but he wasn't there. Her ears quickly swiveled to locate his tense breathing, and she found him standing at the reception desk, his ZPD windbreaker still on. He was surrounded by the members of the ZPD crime scene unit who were all babbling excitedly.</p><p>She quickened her pace and scampered over to him. "What's up, boss?"</p><p>He immediately started stalking back toward the vehicle bay, as she hurried to keep up with him. The CSU team straggled along behind them, picking up their cases and slinging their backpacks over their shoulders.</p><p>"Apparently our brothers and sisters over Parks and Rec have run into something they can't handle and their first reaction was to call and ask for you. Since you weren't here yet, I fielded the call." He barked at her as he strode down the hall.</p><p>"Sir, if they had a question, you could have passed it through to my cell phone. I would have been happy to answer any questions they might have had." She huffed as she tried to keep up. Damn it, she couldn't run and talk at the same time anymore.</p><p>Blasting through the doors, he stopped at his personal command cruiser and turned to her. "They didn't have a question per se, no, not a simple question at all, Detective. Actually, no, they found something buried in the middle of the forest, something that they think only you can help explain." He gestured for her to get into the cruiser.</p><p><em>Uh Oh. He only called her Detective if the shit was about to hit the fan.</em> "What did they find?" She asked as she paused at the open passenger door.</p><p>He looked down at her through the cruiser, a frown etching his muzzle with worry.</p><p>"Bodies, Detective Hopps. Lots and lots of mammal bodies buried in the ground."</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. A Bloody Mess</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Bogo and Judy arrive on location to take a grand vista overlooking an unsettling situation.  They go down in the ravine to assess the crime scene, and get briefed by the mammal in charge.  To answer their questions, the local Ranger that discovered the grisly scene is called over, and Judy has to do a double take as she is brought face to face with the very last mammal she had ever expected to see there.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Oh, look, another chapter!  I wrote this while procrastinating on my other work, so please don't expect daily updates (my aching fingers beg of you), but I needed to put this up so I could at least add the second most important character in all of Zootopia to the tags.</p><p>What does the Fox Say?</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Judy's head lulled about as Bogo sped down the highway in his oversize cruiser. She hadn't been able to snag any coffee to wake herself up with before they left, and the smooth motion of the performance tires combined with the dappled morning light coming in through her overhead window drew her quickly into a restless slumber.</p><p>She was working through her way through a confusing dream about the dead rising from the ground and demanding that she fill out forms in triplicate when a large paw gently shook her awake.</p><p>"Hopps. We're here." Bogo gently said, trying not to startle her to badly.</p><p>She blinked back to wakefulness, yawning as she tried to sit up straight. "Here where?" She asked as she unbuckled her set belt, and pushed open her passenger door.</p><p>He rumbled, "The Northern Cascades Wildlife Refuge, about an hour north of downtown." His hooves crunched on the gravel of the dirt road they were parked on as he too got out of the cruiser. Gently shutting the door behind himself, he walked around the hood of his transport and over to a low wall of rocks that he stepped up onto.</p><p>Judy scrambled out of the door and climbed up beside him. She looked around, taking in her bearings. They were high up in the hills behind Zootopia, well north of the city. Looking to her right, she watched the wall of black basaltic rock that they stood on continue around in a sloping semicircular arrangement, gently receding down northwards to the forest floor some one hundred feet below her toes. To her right, she saw an old trail, overgrown with weeds, gently sloping down around the bowl of the ravine that they were standing over.</p><p>Bogo pointed down to the floor of the ravine, "I guess that is what we're here for." She turned her eyes down to the bottom of the ravine and took in the activities down below. She squinted against the gloom, as the rim of the ravine shielded the valley from the morning sun. She could see some 10 or so rangers milling about, clad in their wide brimmed hats and khaki uniforms. A couple appeared to be wolves, their noses the ground, searching about and every few feet they would stop to pull out a flag from a bundle in their paws and stick it in the ground. The rest of the rangers seemed to be clustered in the middle of the ravine, or over by a blue wadded up tarp laying on the ground.</p><p>"Hopps, come'on." Bogo jerked his head toward the trail, and stepped lightly from the wall of rock they were standing on. She turned to join him, watching as members of the CSU team rushed passed, their cases balanced carefully on their shoulders as they picked their way down the trail. She hopped down to the ground and turned to follow Chief Bogo down the weed entangled path, letting his bulk forge a path for her slight frame.</p><p>They walked down the hill, but before they reached the bottom, Judy's nose was waylaid by a raising stench, a malaise of putrid flesh and lizard shit assaulting her sinuses. She squinted and wiggled her nose as she struggled to get used to the acrid taste of the place. There wasn't really anything one could do in a situation like this but resign oneself to the smell of languishing carrion.</p><p>As they reached the bottom, one of the rangers, an older chamois goat, spotted Bogo's bulk and trotted over to greet them. She held out out her delicate hoof to him, which he took and folded into his great mitt, "Chief Bogo? I'm Warden Ziege; I'm the director here. I'm so glad you could make it. We're grateful for your help. This really isn't our thing, you know."</p><p>"Warden Ziege, The ZPD is always happy to help. May I introduce you to Detective Hopps?" He shook her paw and released it, and in the process guided her down to shake Judy's diminutive paw.</p><p>The goat looked down at the scowling rabbit in confusion, "Um… Hello, Detective? Um…" Warden Ziege limply shook Judy's paw before standing up straight and looking back at Bogo, "I'm sorry, but we were expecting someone with her reputation to be… Be somewhat..."</p><p>"Larger?" Bogo finished for her, irony dancing upon his brow. He smiled at her apparent confusion, "I assure you, Detective Hopps is very experienced in these matters, and there isn't any other mammal on my force that I could trust to do this kind of investigation with the same skill and aplomb that she brings to the process."</p><p>Judy snorted as she listened to Bogo lay down the bullshit. <em>You asshat! It took you years to admit I was anything other than a gloried meter-maid. </em>She stepped around his bulk, taking in the busy scene from ground level. From here, she could see that the little flags had been planted on shallow hillocks of various sizes scattered about the ravine floor, some old and covered with weeds, others just mounds of dirt freshly churned up. One even had what looked like the skeletal remains of a paw, reaching out of the ground, grasping at the air like it was clawing upward for freedom. She realized that the mounds were graves, at least a dozen or so.</p><p>The CSU team was splitting up, fanning out to meet the other rangers at the various mounds. As they passed by the three mammals, Judy turned back to the warden and pointed at the tarp, "What's under there?" She asked.</p><p>The warden grimaced, but she steeled herself and waved for them to follow her. They walked over to the large, lumpy tarp and waited while Ziege pulled it back to expose the crumpled form underneath the folds. The goat averted her eyes from the contents as Bogo winced in distaste, but Judy was fascinated by what she saw.</p><p>She stepped forward to the very edge of the tarp, but not directly on it for fear of contaminating the scene. She reported back to Bogo, "Looks like a large male bear, kodiak or maybe grizzly, based on what fur color I can see. As for establishing the victim's identity, we're probably gonna have to wait for dental records, since the rest of him has been..."</p><p>"Skinned," Bogo interrupted her train of thought, his face set in a scowl. He turned to the visibly shaken goat, "I hate to ask, but how did your ranger...?"</p><p>She shook her head as she starred of into the forest. "Find this? He was out on foot patrol early this morning when he saw the local buzzards circling. Hoping to document whatever the local lizards might have killed, he walked into the clearing and found everything you see before you. He drove off the lizards, and once he figured out what was under the tarp, he called me."</p><p>"Did he document the scene?" Bogo secretly hoped that they had preserved some evidence for his CSU mammals.</p><p>Ziege nodded vigorously, "Yes, he had his body-cam up and running before he even walked in, and he made sure take photos of everything before we arrived. He said that Detective Hopps had emphasized that step in class, and he didn't want to destroy anything that hadn't already been destroyed by the local scavengers." She waved at a figure advancing out of the woods towards them, "There he is! You can ask him your questions directly, Chief Bogo."</p><p>Judy turned back to examine the bear's bloody body, hiding a small secret smile. Yeah, it had have been one of her summer students who had found this and knowing that this was all above their experience, they had had the good grace to call in the experts. She ignored the approaching mammal, trusting Bogo to do the initial questions while she hunted for clues on the body before her.</p><p>She frowned at the gaping ruptures in the lower torso where the scavengers had ripped out the entrails, but that wasn't anything she or the ranger would have been able to prevent. She returned her gaze to the out stretched paws of the bear, the only parts of the body that still had fur on them, frowning as she noticed something amiss at their tips.</p><p><em>That's odd. His claws are missing? No, broken? Some were missing, some were broken, like they had been ripped out? </em>She looked over at the teeth, but they were still intact in the jaws. The other thing she noticed was that the bear was terribly skinny, like he was malnourished or underweight. <em>Hum… </em>They would know better, once they could established the bear's identity, what physical condition he had been in at the time of his death.</p><p>A voice drawled behind her, "Ma'am?"</p><p>Judy's ears shot up to their fullest extension as disbelief echoed across her features. She spun around on her heel, and stared in shock at the scarlet mammal as he ambled up to her chief and his warden, a mocking grin playing across his narrow canine muzzle as he looked directly at her.</p><p>Ziege turned to Bogo and introduced Bogo to the short ranger before them. "Chief Bogo, may I introduce Ranger..."</p><p>Judy stood trembling in shock and barely repressed rage, her teeth grinding, her mind started doing somersaults as she inwardly seethed, <em>WHY o' WHY, in the name of every unholy bloody bunny buttfuck was HE here?! Oh, No! It just had to be her luck today, to be saddled with his swarmy, smirking, smart ass… </em></p><p>"Ranger Nickolas P. Wilde. Ranger Wilde, this is Chief Bogo." The goat finished.</p><p>The little red fox smiled easily up at the towering bull, "Sir."</p><p>Ziege turned to the smaller, shaking bunny, and with a look of concern on her brow, she started, "And… Um… This… is…."</p><p>Ranger Wilde held up his paw, forestalling his boss's awkward introductions, "We've met." He stepped forward, and crossing his arms in front of himself, he addressed the shaking rabbit.</p><p>"Detective Hopps, as I live and breathe! How ya doing today, Carrots?"</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Playground Flirting</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Ranger Nick shows up and briefs Bogo on what he found, all while Judy struggles not to rip his smirking head off.  Concerned that he might witness yet another murder, Bogo tries separate the two mammals.  But the Warden has other ideas, and sends Nick off into the forest as Judy's escort as she documents the evidence.  After the old goat explains why to Bogo, he decides that perhaps a more paws-off approach might solve the current crisis.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I am such a liar.  I was only going to post once a month, or maybe twice, but here I am posting yet another chapter.  I'm seriously procrastinating on my other chapter, but it's got 9 separate scenes, with various mammals trading confessions back and forth - a whole lot of talking heads, with lots to keep track of.  It's giving me a headache.</p>
<p>Where as this work is much less.... aggravating.  Each chapter is a scene, right around 1500 words, which something I can bang out in a couple of hours.  And the words are flowing so easily.</p>
<p>Anyway, I digress.  You don't want to hear me moan about, you want bunny/fox action.  Here ya go....</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Hopps drew a deep breath to deliver a less than well thought out retort to the feisty fox, but Bogo beat her to the punch with a low pitch growl, "Hoppssss…."</p>
<p>Judy flicked her angry eyes up to her chief's face, but he just glowered down with his best "parking duty all week" look playing across his face. She barely kept her jaw clenched shut.</p>
<p>Nick smirked and turned back to his boss, "Ma'am. I followed the tracks all the back to an old logging trail, about three quarters of a mile due east of here. They disappear at that point, replaced by a set of tracks from a box truck, which continued up the hills to the southwest. I was getting ready to track them further along when I saw the ZPD vehicle arrive in the distance, and I decided to come back."</p>
<p>"Tracks?" Bogo echoed him in query.</p>
<p>Ranger Wilde nodded, "Yes sir." He turned and pushed past the still fuming bunny to point at the muddy ground near the tarp, "You can see where the tire treads ripped up the grass." He stood in the middle of the muddled tracks and pointed down, "Looks like some kind of narrow wheelbase skid-steer. You can see the indentations from what looks like the forks of a forklift just under the body in the tarp, and over there you can see where they stopped to start digging a hole." He pointed down at a shallow hole with a few clumps of sod dumped next to it.</p>
<p>"Did they get out to dig?" Bogo asked him.</p>
<p>Nick shook his head, "No sir. You can see where they put down the leveling struts," pointing to two square indentations in the grass on either side of the hole. "And you can see the marks from the three teeth on the bucket at the rear of the hole. It's some kind of bucket excavator, but not one I'm familiar with." He stood back up and brushed off his paws.</p>
<p>"Why did they stop digging? Did they see you you coming?" Bogo demanded to know.</p>
<p>Nick just snorted as he shook his head, "No. They were gone long before I arrive. I would have heard the damn thing running, and besides, there is only one path out of this little valley through the trees, and that's the path I took to get here." He pointed at the gap in the trees for them. "No, judging by the tracks in the mud, and the condition of the corpse, I'd say they came in and left two nights ago, just after that big rain storm we had. Probably picked that time because the soil would have been easier to dig up. As for why they left in a hurry," he pointed at several wide paw prints with five parallel claw marks each, "I suspect they woke up the local dragons with their noise, and the damn lizards drove them off. Probably why they haven't returned to finish the burial."</p>
<p>"Dragons?" Judy squeaked, looking alarmed.</p>
<p>The warden nodded sagely, "Yes, dear. Komodo dragons, actually."</p>
<p>"Huh?" Bogo interjected, "They're not native to Zootopia!"</p>
<p>Nick grinned wryly, "No sir, they're definitely not. Nor are the ball pythons, anacondas, or the piranhas we have here."</p>
<p>Warden Ziege nodded in agreement, "We have a real problem with invasive species here in the park, most of them dumped out by breeders or other unsavory characters who just can't care for them anymore."</p>
<p>Gulping down on her fear, Judy asked, "Where are they now?"</p>
<p>Nick turned and pointed up the hill, "At this time in the morning, probably up on top of the hill sunning themselves. Probably all camped out around your cruisers." He added with an evil grin as he looked down at the little bunny.</p>
<p>Judy tried to damp down her fear, setting her muzzle to a frown as she scowled at the fox, the twitching of her nose the only indication of the agitation buzzing at the base of her brain.</p>
<p>Bogo watched the interplay between the two smaller mammals and sighed internally. He knew about the trouble his dour detective had experienced teaching the year before, and he now understood that this fox was definitely the same same fox she had complained so bitterly about. He didn't quite understand how this particular relationship had come to pass, since he could see that separately they were both very professional law enforcement mammals, exceedingly competent in their chosen fields of expertise.</p>
<p>But somehow, for some reason, the fox had decided that yanking on Judy's very short tail was a lot of fun, and for some equally mysterious reason she was allowing him to do so. It was like watching 4 th graders flirt, where the male bucks would pull the female doe's ears just to get their attention, and the female would screech and chase the male around the playground. And if the male wasn't paying attention to the female, she'd go interrupt what ever game he was playing just so he would return to paying attention to her.</p>
<p>It was all so juvenile. He rubbed his face with his paw, <em>Great! Now I have to separate the two of them… Gonna have to send them to opposite sides of the playground for the duration of recess … I' m too old for this crap, I swear to Mungu… </em></p>
<p>He shook his head and bit out in a tone that brokered no arguments, "Hopps."</p>
<p>She tore her eyes off the fox and back up to her boss, and just as shortly answered, "Sir."</p>
<p>He pointed at the graves, "CSU is going to be a while digging all of this up. Why don't you go get footage of the tracks for forensics while we wait?" It wasn't a request.</p>
<p>She jerked her head at the opening to the forest, and he nodded. She whipped out her phone and started taking pictures, slowly making her way toward the forest.</p>
<p>Warden Ziege spoke up, "You're going off alone? It's dangerous out there. I'm really not sure that's such a good idea."</p>
<p>Judy stood and swept back her coat, showing off her 22 short revolver in her hip holster, "I'm armed, ma'am. I can handle myself." She wasn't about to admit she was afraid to the old goat, especially in front of her boss or even the thrice damned fox.</p>
<p>"Still..." The nanny looked over at Nick, "Ranger Wilde?"</p>
<p>"I'll get my rifle, Ma'am." He assured her with a grin and trotted off towards a camouflaged ATV in the shadows by the forest's edge.</p>
<p>Looking back down at the angry little rabbit, the Warden added, "In the city, I am sure that you can indeed handle yourself, Detective Hopps. But out here, predation is a fact of life and we have lost mammals to the local wildlife. In light of the current circumstances, I'm going to insist that no ZPD personnel go wandering about without a Ranger in attendance." She added firmly.</p>
<p>Clenching her jaw, Judy just barely nodded before turning and stalking off toward the forest toward the waiting fox, who stood waiting patiently at the treeline.</p>
<p>Bogo sighed, "Did you have to do that?" He waved at Judy's retreating back, "I was trying to keep the two of them separated!"</p>
<p>Warden Ziege looked at him confusion, "Whatever for? I mean, he warned me that she was a bit acidic, but he also said that she was the best in the business, particularly with something this nasty." She waved her hoof out over the shadowed valley, now crawling with busy mammals taking pictures and excavating dirt.</p>
<p>"He did?" Bogo pointed off at Nick's distant red and khaki form in disbelief.</p>
<p>She nodded vigorously, "Oh, yes. He's the one that suggested that I contact her this morning. He implied that he knew her quite well."</p>
<p>"Really?" Bogo mused, his finger-hooves tapping on his lower lip. Maybe there was something more with those two than Detective Hopps had previously let on, something that she certainly didn't want to admit to. He smirked for a moment before turning his attention back to his CSU team and the situation at hoof, resolving to let nature take it's course with the two smaller mammals.</p>
<p>Detective Hopps was a big bunny, and if she had a problem with the fox's behavior toward her, she was going to have to figure out how to solve it herself.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Still Forests and Silent Waters</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Detective Judy Hopps is escorted through the dense forest by Ranger Nick Wilde, but in her tired and addled state, she is distracted by the visage of scarlet masculine fur.  Embarrassed by her lack of focus, she takes a detour from the beaten path, where she will find quiet contemplation and numbing terror.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A stillness hung over the woods as wisps of chill fog wandered through the branches. It was too cold for insects to yet be buzzing about, and the occasional bird song was quickly swallowed up by the ubiquitous moss that coated log and stone. Judy tucked her ears into her fedora, trying to keep them warm, while still keeping her eyes and her camera glued to the tire tracks below her feet.</p><p> </p><p>Actually, following the tracks wasn’t all that hard, since the tires that had generated them had made a fair mess of the muddy ground. It was obvious that this was a well used track, as the weeds had been beaten back along the wheel ruts, meaning who ever had dumped the body back at the ravine had used that same skid-steer to bring in the other bodies. They had counted on the remoteness of the location to prevent discovery of their heinous criminal actions, only to be undone by the rapacious hunger of lumbering lizards.</p><p> </p><p>No, Judy’s problem wasn’t so much keeping her eyes on the track as it was just keeping them open. In the rush to get out here, she had forgone her morning coffee, and now the lack of stimulant was catching up to her. Her feet dragged and tripped on the ruts as she tried to look for clues as to the operator, some indication of what kind of mammal was driving this machine.</p><p> </p><p><em>And that fox, oh that irritating fox.</em> She could just feel his eyes on her, laughing at her as she fought for footing in the damp earth. He hung back behind her, his even and measure breath quiet as he paced her shorter stride easily. <em>He just had to be ogling my ass</em>, she bet herself, <em>the pervert.</em></p><p> </p><p>Judy brought herself to a halt with a scowl. <em>My mind just had to go there, didn’t it?</em>  She quickly looked back at the slowly moseying fox, who grinned affably back at her. “Yes???” He drawled at length.</p><p> </p><p>“What are you doing?” She interrogated him crossly.</p><p> </p><p>“Following you, it looks like.” He easily replied.</p><p> </p><p>She squinted at him in the forest gloom, certain that he had a smirk on his muzzle.</p><p> </p><p>“I thought you were supposed to be protected me? What if one of those dragons jumps out and gets me? What good are you going to be back there?” She demanded to know.</p><p> </p><p>He cocked his head and thoughtfully replied, “I thought you said you didn’t need protection? Besides, it’s too cold down here for the dragons. Like I said, they’re up on the heights, sunning themselves.”</p><p> </p><p><em>Well, if he wasn’t protecting me from them, what was he doing?</em>  She was pretty sure she didn’t want him doing that, what ever it was. She wanted him up in front, where she could keep an eye the smarmy and mischievous fox. She stood to the side of the trail, and pointed at him and then pointed in front of her.</p><p> </p><p>He chuffed a short laugh and stepped forward, “You’re the boss.” As he passed her, the tip of his long tail brushed past her legs, and then it was gone. Judy resisted the urge to itch the contacted fur, to even acknowledge that he had touched her in passing.</p><p> </p><p>He took position a few paces in front of her, and started walking with a loose limbed easy gait, his lever action rifle held loosely in his brawny arms. She followed behind him, her phone on the trail before her but her wandering eye, lacking focus in her caffeine deprived state, caught the movement of his robust legs, the muscular thighs sliding in and out of his khaki shorts as he stepped nimbly along the tire ruts. She could imaging those same legs striding through impenetrable blackberry thickets or climbing up steep cliffs with equal easy.</p><p> </p><p>Her gaze crept up his legs to settle on his downy tail, held out lightly in counter balance to his forward stride, and framing that luxurious mass of fur were two exquisite ass checks. Her eyes locked on their rhythmic movement as her mind wandered back her early morning reverie. Her feet, stepping automatically but without guidance, caught a clump of dirt, and she stumbled toward him.</p><p> </p><p>He stopped and reached out with a paw, “Easy there, Carrots.”</p><p> </p><p>She caught herself with a jerk, shrinking back instinctively from the outstretched claws he offered. She ripped her eyes up to his, a thousand expressions playing across her facial features as she struggled with conflicting emotions; embarrassment, anger, shame, loneliness and need.</p><p> </p><p>He stood looking down at her for a moment, as if he was puzzling out what the cast in her face actually meant, before turning his muzzle up to the air and sniffing. He inhaled deeply, “You smell that?”</p><p> </p><p>“Smell what?” She demanded indignantly, secretly glad that her hot ears, flushed with embarrassment, were tucked up underneath her hat.</p><p> </p><p>Nick turned his nose back and forth seeking and eventually finding, “Something… Something… Oh… Fowl.” He grinned, and licked his lips, his tongue meandering down his muzzle, a flash of ivory peeking through the edges.</p><p> </p><p>Judy stood frozen for a moment, the sight of sharp canines causing a rush of blood to her loins, while her addled mind sorted through the words that had slipped off that tongue. Her eyes narrowed as she fought for control, realizing that she had slipped up by watching his pacing form, <em> Can he smell me right now? He thinks it’s foul? What!? Why would he say that to me?!? </em></p><p> </p><p>She turned away, looking for some distraction, some other object to fixate her attention, as she once again warred with anger and desire. Her gaze slid to the side, and she spotted a pool hidden in the undergrowth. She stepped off the track and pushed thought the reeds by the water’s edge. Maybe she just needed to splash some water on her muzzle, help her regain her focus?</p><p> </p><p>She knelt at the shore between a clump of weeds, and dipped a paw to the water. She marveled at the warmth of the water, and as she brought the wet paw up her nose, she could smell that faint scent of sulfur. <em> A hot springs pool </em> , she realized, <em> Oh I’d love to soak my </em> <em> tired </em> <em> feet in there </em>.</p><p> </p><p>She looked back at the pond, her paw momentarily forgotten, as she spied a drifting log in the still water. It sat low in the water, it’s bark moist and green with algae, it’s mass mostly submerged save for two knots in the middle. As the log drifted in the reeds, ever closer to her, she could swear that one of those knots was an eye, and that it was looking right at her.</p><p> </p><p>Two things happened very rapidly at that point. First, a set of wide spaced claws hooked tightly on to the back of her trench coat, piercing through the rain proof material and into her blouse, and yanked backwards. Secondly, there was an eruption of mud and water as the log  suddenly exploded into the air, splitting along it’s length into a serrated maw that snapped closed an inch from her nose.</p><p> </p><p>She was jerked back through the weeds to land in a heap on the other side of the path, the canine’s claws releasing her as Nick turned his attention to the thwarted reptile’s presence. He stood staring down at the smaller reptile in challenge, but apparently the scaly beast thought better of taking on a larger predator and slunk back into the marshy waters. Nick snorted in response, and turned back to the terrified bunny laying on the ground. He tilted his head down, and advised her in a light and mocking tone, “Watch out for the caiman, they bite!”</p><p> </p><p>Judy dragged her eyes off the receding tail, and up to his face. But the look of concern in his eyes belied his tone. <em> He was worried about her. He was probably thinking she was suicidal as well as bitter and argumentative. </em> “C-c-c-caiman?” She stammered.</p><p> </p><p>Nick nodded as he stepped back to the edge of the reeds and retrieved her hat. He held it up, and brushed off the mud that clung to the edges, “Yeah. Caiman. You not have those back in Podunk?” He held out his other paw to help her up.</p><p> </p><p>She shook her head as she stood up on unsteady legs, “No… I’m from Bunny Burrow, and we don’t have any caiman in our waters.” He handed her the hat and she asked him a question as she slipped it back on, “I don’t suppose it’s native to these forests?”</p><p> </p><p>He shook his head, and turned his eyes back to the pool, “No, it’s too cool for them normally, unless they can find a thermal pool like that one. No, they’re not native. They were introduced back in the 20’s to eat some invasive toads, but they’re not picky. They’ll eat anything they can shove in their mouths, and when you had knelt down by the pool, you made yourself small enough that it was willing to try taking you on.” He turned back look down to her, “Try to be more careful, okay? The Warden was serious when she said we had a predation problem here.”</p><p> </p><p>Judy, still recovering from fright, only nodded dumbly. Nick nodded in response, and turned to leave. She walked along the opposite side the path, crushing up against the trees and brambles along the trail, but a sound issuing forth from the vegetation brought her up short. She froze in momentary terror, thinking that the caiman had circled around to the other side and was about to spring out on her. Her eye shot wildly to the bushes at her side, straining to see in the darkness, and it was met with the icy gaze of a small beady eye surrounded in a wash of crimson.</p><p> </p><p>A great gray mass rushed out of the bushes toward her and Judy ducked in terror, convinced that her end had finally found her.</p><p> </p><p>Nick yelled, “NO!” and rushed back to her.</p><p> </p><p>“<b>GOOOBBBBLLEEE!!! GOOOBBBBLLEEE!!!”</b></p>
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<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Just a Snack!</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Judy must deal with the attentions of a fowl bird, while Nick strides in to the rescue.  After her assailant flees, Judy witnesses a scene that shakes her to her core.  Seeking to comfort her, Nick offers her solace and a snack.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Oh, Look!  Another Chapter!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Death didn’t come.</p><p> </p><p>Bewildered, Judy peeked out through her fingers. There, on the ground before her weren’t the wet legs of a large carnivorous reptile madly bent on the taste of her hot blood. No, they were instead these odd spindly legs, ending in feet with three long clawed toes. She turned her gaze up those feet and up the equally thin legs, to a wide body of gray feathers, and at the end of that body was a little red skull whose beady glass eyes stared back at her.</p><p> </p><p>“Goobbbbblllleee!!!”</p><p> </p><p><em> It’s just a bird, thank God! I thought it was the caiman! </em> She smiled a small embarrassed smile, and started to stand up.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>WHACK!</b>
</p><p> </p><p>“OW!” Judy cried, as the bird slammed his closed beak through her hat and into her skull. She collapsed back to the ground.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>AAAAHHHHRRRRRGGGGGGGGG!”</em> Nick growled loudly as he ran towards the large fowl, waving his arms and rifle in the air like a windmill.</p><p> </p><p>“<b>PUUUTTTT! PUUUTTTT!” </b>It took off squawking, flying a few yards down the path before landing and turning back to look contemptuously back at Nick. It called out another challenge, “Gooobbbleeee!”</p><p> </p><p>Nick, keeping one eye on the bird, held out his paw to Judy’s crouching form, “Come on, it’s okay. You can stand up now.”</p><p> </p><p>Judy took his paw and stood up beside him. She pulled off her fedora and rubbed the sore spot on her scalp. “What was that all about?” She asked him.</p><p> </p><p>Nick chuckled low, “It’s the beginning of turkey mating season.” He pointed at the bird, “All the young tom’s are establishing their pecking order, and he must have thought you were another male come to challenge him. That’s why he rushed you, and gave you a peck when you tried to stand up. He was just enforcing his social dominance.”</p><p> </p><p>Judy slipped her hat back on, and twisted her frame about, looking down her coat, “That’s funny, I don’t look like a turkey.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, well, they don’t see all that well in the dark. He must have seen the movement of your gray coat, and thought you were another tom.” Nick nodded toward the trees, “Normally they’d still be up in their tree roosts, but with the onset of the mating season, their hormones kick in and they can get kind of aggressive.”</p><p> </p><p>Judy looked at the beady eyed bird with trepidation, “He’s not going to attack us again, is he?”</p><p> </p><p>Nick stood tall, and matched the birds stare, “No, he’s gonna be too busy in a few moments. A call like that will carry through the forest and bring in other challengers.” Nick turned his head slightly, “Yup, here comes one now.”</p><p> </p><p>Another large tom flapped down from the trees and answered the first male’s challenge. They circled each other, sizing up each other’s respective snoods. They were evenly matched in size and coloration, so it was only a matter of moments before a fight broke out. The new arrival launched into a kicking attack with his leg spurs and drove the other male back into the reeds by the edge of the path. But before that tom could counter-attack, a loud clap sounded from the reds, and the tom screamed as he was dragged backwards through the reeds, disappearing into the gloom. In a panic, the other tom flew away into the trees.</p><p> </p><p>Judy shivered as the scream was cut short with a gurgle. She grasped Nick’s uniform in a spasm, her fists balled up in his khaki shirt, and huddled close to his bulk.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, Hey...” He reached down with his free paw and awkwardly patted her back, “It’s okay. You’re safe.”</p><p> </p><p>Judy shuddered, a wave traveling down her spine, as she fought to control her fright. She banged her head against his stomach in frustration, “I...I’m-m-m-m sorry-y-y-y-”. She gasped.</p><p> </p><p>He nodded, “Come on, let’s go.” He placed his paw behind her back, and gently tried to guide her away from the pool, “Or do you need to go back?” He asked her.</p><p> </p><p>She let go of his shirt and turned to match his slow pace, letting herself be guided. “No,” she sighed, “I can go on.” The last place she wanted to go was back alongside that pool with it’s hidden eyes. She could just imagine the feathers of that unfortunate turkey floating between the watery reeds.</p><p> </p><p>Nick looked down at her in concern, “I would have thought you’ve seen death before?”</p><p> </p><p>She looked up at him from under the brim of her fedora, the twitching of her nose the only remaining indication of her emotional state. “Death? Yeah, I’ve seen death before, seen victims at crime scenes. I’ve even had suspects attack me and try to kill me.” She shivered, “But I have never encountered something that wanted to consume me so… savagely.” She shook her head, “Usually, during an investigation, I get to know the suspect, so by the time I get to actually arresting them, I’m ready for how violent they can be. That...” She waved her paw back down the path, “that… There was just no warning, no warning at all.”</p><p> </p><p>He patted her shoulder awkwardly as he stepped away from her side, “That’s predators for you. True predators, anyway. That caiman just wanted to eat, and live another day. He wasn’t committing a crime in the process.”</p><p> </p><p>Judy let out a breath, “Some do, some do.” He looked back at her inquisitively, but she stared back in confusion, “Hang on. Why are you being so nice to me?”</p><p> </p><p>“Nice?” He asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes! Nice! And understanding!” She gestured expansively.</p><p> </p><p>“Shouldn’t I be?” Nick was confused.</p><p> </p><p>Judy gaped at him, her jaw dropped, “Huh?!?! No, you’ve always been horrible! You were a beast to me in class, always making fun of me. Why were you so awful to me?”</p><p> </p><p>“In class, last year?” He ask as he strode along the path, his eyes alert of other dangers as he listened to her with half an ear.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes!” She demanded.</p><p> </p><p>He shrugged, “You were boring.”</p><p> </p><p>“WHAT!” She squeaked.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, the way you were teaching was boring, just reading straight from the book. Any mammal can read a book. We didn’t do any labs or field work, or even work a few case files.”</p><p> </p><p>“It was an eight week intensive overview on criminal behavioral science! I didn’t have the space to shove two years worth of my actual Masters work into that short of a time frame!” She pointed out to him.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, but that was the interesting stuff, at least to me. The book wasn’t interesting at all, just filled with graphs and charts, and all the stuff about mammal behavior was reduced to an overview. Like the author was above everybody else or something, looking down.”</p><p> </p><p>She hotly defended her choice of textbook, “Professor McHorn is a noted academic in the criminal justice field, and he was ZPD officer for years before he retired to write his books. He knows what he was talking about!”</p><p> </p><p>“What is he? Your advisor or something?” Nick asked her. “No, when you talked about your experiences, that was interesting. You were interesting. That book? Not so much.”</p><p> </p><p>Judy went silent for a moment, loathe to admit that McHorn was indeed on her thesis advisory committee, but she really did feel his book was a good one. She wasn’t just using it to suck up to the older rhino. <em> Wait, did he say I was interesting? </em>She smiled to herself, but in her introspection, she lost sight of the trail, and stumbled on the ruts.</p><p> </p><p>He was quicker, and gentler this time, as he caught her shoulder with an open paw, “I’m serious – are you okay? We can go back if we need to.”</p><p> </p><p>“No, No, I’m good… It’s just… We’re doing all this walking, and talking, and stuff, and I haven’t had my morning coffee or anything to eat for breakfast.” She gestured back the way they had come, “I mean, I’m sure the CSU mammals brought doughnuts, but Bogo told me to do this… I’m sorry. I’m hungry, and not very alert, and my mind is wandering.” There; that was all very true, and very incomplete, she knew.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh!” Nick stood back up straight, “I can’t do anything about the coffee thing; bad for canines, you know, but I can do something about breakfast. Would you like some cattail?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes! I would love some cattail; it’s been years since I’ve had any, least since my kit-hood.” Every spring, when her father would dredge the irrigation canals, he would bring in armloads of cattail shoots to share with the families, and it was one of Judy’s favorite childhood memories.</p><p> </p><p>Nick pointed down the path, “We’re almost to the logging road, and there’s a ditch that runs alongside it. I noticed cattails growing there, and we should be able to get you some shoots.” He led her the remaining distance to the road, and into the sunlight filtering down between the rows of trees.</p><p> </p><p>Nick handed his rifle to Judy, and stepped down into the drainage ditch that ran alongside the road. She looked on in concern, “Be careful! There could be caimans down there!”</p><p> </p><p>He looked back at her, his feet slowly sinking in the mud, a grin on his muzzle, “Nah! Not enough water here for them to swim in, just mud.” He pulled his belt knife out and hacked off several fresh stalks which he tossed up on the bank. He put the knife away and started to scramble back up the bank when he stopped with an exclamation, “Oh, hey… Look, cassina shoots! That’ll do!” He dug out his belt knife again and dug up a couple of short shoots. Kneeling on the bank top, he peeled the outer layers off of the shoots, and handed them to Judy.</p><p> </p><p>“You mentioned coffee, right? That’s cassina, also known as yaupon. It also contains a lot of caffeine, but it can be kinda strong, so you might just want to nibble on it.” He smiled at her before picking up the cattail stalks and started to peel the leaves off of the cores.</p><p> </p><p>Judy frowned for a moment, as she had never heard of yaupon, but she was desperate for coffee, and any substitute would do for her caffeine cravings right about then. She nibbled on the root.</p><p> </p><p>“How’s it taste?” Nick asked her.</p><p> </p><p>She frowned for a moment, and then smiled, “Not bad. Kinda nutty and a bit sweet? Could be worse, I suppose.” She bit off a larger chunk and chewed on it.</p><p> </p><p>Nick stood and held out the trimmed white cattail stalks to her, “Here, I’ll trade ya.” Judy handed him his rifle and took the stalks in return as she stared down at his muddy legs in dismay.</p><p> </p><p>“Your legs are all muddy! I’m sorry!” she apologized.</p><p> </p><p>He looked down with a grin and brushed at his shorts, “Occupational hazard for a park ranger, don’t worry about it.” As a clump fell off his knees, Nick noticed something laying on the ground. “Hang on.” He bent over and picked up a small sliver of wood that was laying by the side of the logging road. “What’s this?” He held it up.</p><p> </p><p>Judy stared at the pale piece, her eyes narrowing as she slowly chewed. “Looks like a toothpick.” She looked up at the taller canine and his nose and asked suspiciously, “What does it smell like?”</p><p> </p><p>“Smell like? Other than careless mammal litter?” He sniffed the stick gently. “Hum… the scent’s faint, but if I’d have to hazard a guess...” He tasted the end of the stick with his tongue.</p><p> </p><p>“What?” Judy already had an idea, but it was a pretty far out idea, even in her experience.</p><p> </p><p>Nick held it out for her to look at as he announced his prognosis.</p><p> </p><p>“Weasel.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Pop Goes The Weasel</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Judy and Nick follow the tracks up the hill, and along the way Nick encourages her to tell him a story.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Shit.”</p><p> </p><p>Judy frowned for a moment. She need to bag the evidence, if it indeed was evidence, but she was out of paws. She slid the lengths of cattail stalk into her coat pockets, freeing up a paw which she slip inside her coat. Pulling out an evidence bag, she shook it open and held it out to Nick expectantly. He dropped the sliver of wood into it, and she folded it back up and tucked it back into her coat.</p><p> </p><p>“Is it important?” Nick asked her.</p><p> </p><p>“It might be. It might not.” She responded around a chunk of cassini that she was busy chewing, “It’s a long shot, but I do know a weasel who’s fond of toothpicks, and while he’s class act in his own right, burying bodies in the wood is a little outside of his normal behavior range.” She pointed to the tire tracks in the dirt, “They’re not very clear here, unlike down there.” She pointed back to the path leading toward the mass grave site.</p><p> </p><p>Nick bent over and drew his claws through the dirt, “The road was built up by a lumber company some ten years ago or so. They didn’t want their lumber trucks bogging down in the mud, so they elevated the road and made it well draining. It tends to stay dry.”</p><p> </p><p>“Does the water not drain down here?” Judy asked him as she started chewing on a cattail stalk.</p><p> </p><p>Nick shook his head as he stood, “No. We’re standing in a collapsed lava tube leading out of the Zootopia super caldera to the south of us. The top of the tube was pretty thin, and it collapsed eons ago, but the bottom is made up of layers of pretty impermeable basalt. It forms a sealed trough, trapping the water in the dirt and making the whole forest pretty swampy. What water that does leak out of the rock just gets heated by the underground volcanic action and returns to the surface as hot springs.”</p><p> </p><p>“Lots of bacterial action in that water?” She asked.</p><p> </p><p>He nodded, “Yeah, with all the heat and sulfur, the water is pretty active.”</p><p> </p><p>“Alright,” she considered, “this makes more sense. Dump the bodies in the swamp, and the local microorganisms will make more short work of the soft tissues, especially if the skin and fur had been removed first.” She scowled for a moment, “Did you see any mammal tracks here?”</p><p> </p><p>He shook his head, “Nope.” He pointed down at the tire tracks, “I don’t see any evidence of a ramp either.”</p><p> </p><p>She looked at where he pointed, “Hum… The tire tracks just terminate here, and then there’s this gap between them to the next set of tracks.” She pointed, “It might be a donk.” He looked at her with confused look. She smiled wryly at him, “Sorry, it’s a farming term. You ever seen the forklift trucks that get attached to the end of a semi trailer? You see them a lot on turf trucks, for instance.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, yeah, okay, I get you.” He nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“Except that I’ve never seen them with an excavator bucket attachment.”</p><p> </p><p>“It could be a custom job, maybe fabricated for this purpose.” Nick offered.</p><p> </p><p>“Maybe,” She agreed. “I’ve got a guy over at the DMV that I can ask. He’s kinda of an expert on this stuff. If the tech guys can’t tell me what the vehicle is, I can ask him.” She pointed down at the tracks, “How far do these go?”</p><p> </p><p>Nick shrugged, “I don’t know. Let’s follow them and find out.” He started up the gradually sloped roadbed at a gentle pace, his eyes on the tracks. Judy followed behind him. A few feet along he asked her, “So what’s the deal with the weasel?”</p><p> </p><p>“Huh?” She looked up at him, “Oh. Duke. His name’s Duke Weaselton. He’s a career petty criminal, mostly dealing in counterfeiting and petty theft. Classic psychopathic behavior, bad childhood, lack of educational or employment opportunities, the general stuff. That being said, unless he’s really escalated his criminal endeavors since the last time I encountered him, I don’t see him doing something like this. There’s no profit margin in it. He’s got plenty of rage, but he’s primarily motivated by greed.”</p><p> </p><p>“Last time?” Nick asked, “When was the first?”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, God, years and years ago. When I first joined the force.”</p><p> </p><p>“Do tell?” He encouraged her.</p><p> </p><p>“What, you really want to know?” <em>Why does he want to know?</em></p><p> </p><p>He nodded.</p><p> </p><p><em>Well...</em>  “Okay, It was like fifteen years ago, just after graduation from the police academy. I was assigned to Precinct One by Ex-Mayor Lionheart, and that pissed Chief Bogo right off. He did not like that self-preening politician butting into his turf, but since he couldn’t tell the mayor off, he took it out on me. Assigned me to parking duty. Top of the class valedictorian, assigned to parking duty on my first day. It was humiliating. And boring.” She grimaced</p><p> </p><p>“So when an opportunity popped up for me to prove my worth, I jumped at the chance. Duke had just robbed a flower shop, and with the shop owner screaming in my ear, I excitedly took off after the weasel. I thought I could catch him easily, with his little short legs, and me being a fleet rabbit and all. He had made it all the way to the park in front of city hall when it all went wrong for me. I had been so intent on my target that I wasn’t watching where I was going, and I tripped over this little mammal in a wheel chair; some little homeless fox out begging for spare change. I fell down in a heap, ended up landing on my wrist wrong. Sprained it.” She shook her paw.</p><p> </p><p>“The weasel got away, I take it?” Nick asked.</p><p> </p><p>Judy sighed, “Yeah. He got away clean. Another officer showed, McHorn by the way, but he couldn’t keep up. The weasel ducked into Tiny Town, caused a panic, and he got away in the confusion.”</p><p> </p><p>“Ouch,” Nick observed.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah. A great first pursuit, I must add. Anyway, I lost him, so I turned back to help up the crippled little fox back into his chair. His little legs didn’t work so well, so I had to lift him up into the seat. I asked if he want to file a complaint, but he just waved me off and rolled off into the crowds. It wasn’t until I made it back to my traffic enforcement cart that I realized that he had taken off with my wallet.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh Ho! Little fox boosted you, did he?” Nick gawfed.</p><p> </p><p>Judy smiled in spite of her self, “Yeah. Like I was a newbie tourist, fresh off the trains. I didn’t even feel it. I’ve trained to spot that sort of thing at the academy, but to actually experience is a different story.” She shook her head. “Anyway, I didn’t want to tell anybody back at the precinct, so I kept it to myself. He didn’t take my phone, so all he really made off with was my lunch money. I canceled my bank card via the banking app, and drove back to the ZPD treatment clinic with one paw.”</p><p> </p><p>“Ow. Your other one was already swollen?” Nick asked her.</p><p> </p><p>“Like one of those twist up balloons. Anyway, I went into work the next day anyway, cause I didn’t want them think I wasn’t tough enough. The chief came in, took one look at me, and he just snorted and shook his head. Later on, after he had given out the assignment to all the over officers, he was just left with me. He looked down at me as I sat trying to look chipper and ignore the pain in my wrist, and he drawled ‘Hopps, I thought I told you to write 100 tickets.’ And I told him that I wrote 200, to which replied ‘So you did.’” Judy tried to mimic her bosses deep rumble.</p><p> </p><p>“Um Hum...” Nick allowed.</p><p> </p><p>Judy continue, “He stood at his podium, leafing through his clip board, and helpfully observed, ‘Gonna be kinda hard to write tickets with a sprained wrist.’ I figured he was about assign me back out to parking duty again just to be mean, but he had other ideas. Either he took pity on me, or he want to be really sadistic, but he ended assigning me to the Cold Case department instead. The irony of course being is that department was where I really got my start as a detective.” She looked up at the patiently listening fox, “Why am I telling you all this?”</p><p> </p><p>Nick shrugged, “It helped to pass the time, while I focus on finding the tracks. They’ve been getting fainter the higher we go up, and I think we might loose them up at the cross roads.” He pointed towards an intersection in the logging road just a few yards in front of them.</p><p> </p><p>“Besides, I find your stories interesting, and I want to know more.” He smiled earnestly down at her, his eyes deep pools of emerald fire.</p><p> </p><p>Judy felt a shiver race down her spine straight to her tail as she stared back into their liquid depths.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. A Fistful of Bucks</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Nick greets a pair of rednecks and they conduct a little transaction in front of Judy.  Suspicious of the fox and his motives, Judy demands to know just what Nick is hiding from her.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“…...rrrrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAARRRRRRRR!!!!!”</p><p> </p><p>Judy’s ears flicked about as a rising wail assaulted her hearing. She flinched away from Nick’s penetrating gaze as her eyes darted back and forth. “Dragons!?!??” She squeaked, terrified that she had missed their presence. She had been distracted, beguiled, by the unwavering intensity of the masculine vulpine before her, and he had lead her unwittingly to her doom in the den of ravenous dragons!</p><p> </p><p>Nick’s ears flicked as well as the rolling sound ebbed and crested, frowning in annoyance. He snorted, “No, not dragons. Dragons hiss.” He turned and pointed down the dirt road to their left, “That’s the sound of a completely different kind of predator.” He slung his lever action rifle over his back and stood in the middle of the road to wait for the coming beasts.</p><p> </p><p>Judy hung back and attempt to look calm, trying to pretend she wasn’t actually hiding behind his bulk. “What kind of predators?” She called out to him over the rising din.</p><p> </p><p>Nick turned his head and grinned over his shoulders at her, “Rednecks!” He yelled back as two large red quad ATVs roared around the corner and bore down on the ranger. They split and slid to a stop on either side of him, throwing pebbles and dust into the air. The scruffy boars that sat astride their great beasts killed the engines with a flick of their thumbs. They were dressed identically in surplus green camouflage BDUs, dark googles over their eyes and red handkerchiefs tied back over their snouts.</p><p> </p><p>The one on the right sat back on his seat and growled down at the smaller fox, “Ranger Wilde! We’ve been lookin’ all over hell and gone for you, ya damn fox!”</p><p> </p><p>Nick nodded at the porcine boor, “Earl.” He turned to the other brute and addressed him, “Earnest.” as he stood lightly on his feet.</p><p> </p><p>The older boar, his muzzle faded with age, grunted as he swung his leg over the side of his mount and dropped lightly to the ground. On the back of his jacket, Judy spied an acronym over two crossed knives. <em> T.U.S.K.S.? Some sort of local biker gang? </em> She wondered. <em> Did we just stumble onto some sort of gang warfare? Should I call for backup? </em> She glanced down at her phone screen, but realized that it would be impossible for her to call anyone. She had no reception out in these remote hills. <em> Crap! </em></p><p> </p><p>He stared down at the little fox underneath him, “It’s been a dirty morning, Ranger Wilde. We’re hot, we’re hungry, and we want to get paid like you promised us.”</p><p> </p><p>Nick nodded slowly, “Alright, show me what you got, and then we’ll talk.”</p><p> </p><p>Ernest reached out and pulled a black garbage back off of the rear rack if his ATV. Setting it down before Nick, he opened it up and pulled out a canvas sack that dripped clotting crimson onto the dirt at the canine’s muddy feet.</p><p> </p><p>“Hang on,” Earl demanded, pointing at Judy, “Who’s the dame?”</p><p> </p><p>Nick turned to look back at Judy, who recoiled slightly from the intensity of his gaze. His nostrils were flaring as his glistening tongue, darting from his jaws, wet his long lips. He nodded, “Earl, Earnest, may I introduce to you the august Detective Judith Laverne Hopps, ZPD?” He tossed a clawed finger in her direction, “She’s out here to help us with a little problem this morning.” He shrugged.</p><p> </p><p>Earnest swung his head to stare at her with a beady eye, “Oh? And what problem might that be?” He pitched his voice down low.</p><p> </p><p><em> Paid? What’s going on here? Why is Ranger Wilde acting so weird? Why are they so paranoid about me? And what is in the bloody bag? Just what have I stumbled onto here? </em> Swallowing, Judy set her face and bravely bit out, “I’m not at liberty to discuss those details at this time.”</p><p> </p><p>Nick snorted in laughter and just shook his head while Earl stood up on his ATV, tilted back his snout and took in a deep breath through his large nostrils. “What do you smell?” Earnest asked him, his eye never coming off of the rabbit.</p><p> </p><p>“Blood” Earl sat back down and looked at them, “Old blood… And fear...” He turned his beady eye to look her as well.</p><p> </p><p>“Wilde…” Earnest growled low and long. “What’s going on?”</p><p> </p><p>Nick pointed down into the valley behind them. “What you’re smelling is a mammal who came to a very unfortunate end. Very unfortunate, actually.” He growled.</p><p> </p><p>Earl sank back into his seat with a curse, “Shitfire...”</p><p> </p><p>“Indeed?…” Earnest drawled, his eye returned to stare at Nick. “How unfortunate?” He asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, they were skinned, and their body was dumped down in the ravine.” Nick explained.</p><p> </p><p>Earnest held his snout up and took a deep drink of the morning mists, “Yeah… Bear… Smells like they spilled their guts too?” He looked down at the fox.</p><p> </p><p>Nick nodded in affirmation, “Yeah, pretty sure of that. And they weren’t the only ones there.”</p><p> </p><p>“More?” Earnest asked, as alarm began to spread across his features.</p><p> </p><p>“At least a dozen, buried in the soft dirt.” Nick motioned.</p><p> </p><p>Earl objected, “Well, it wasn’t us!” as he quickly glanced back at Judy.</p><p> </p><p>Nick laughed, “I know that!” He turned serious, “But I need you to let me know if you see a strange truck running around here. It might be a flat or box truck with dual rear axles and a forklift tied to the back. Can you do that for me?” he asked them as he reached into his fanny pack. He pulled out an envelope and handed it to Earnest. “I believe this is what what we agreed on.”</p><p> </p><p>Earnest opened the envelope and peered into it. He nodded, “It is.” He folded the paper envelope and tucked it int his breast pocket. Mounting his machine, he said with a simple nod, “We’ll be in touch, Ranger Wilde.” The two boars thumbed their ignition switches, and with a spray of gravel, they roared off back the way they had come.</p><p> </p><p>Judy was angry now, “Ranger Wilde, We do NOT discuss case details with potential suspects! Is that clear?” She was angry, but at the same time a note of fear also threatened to creep out onto her face, and she clamped down on that leaking emotion with an iron resolve. She would NOT show fear of the fox to his face.</p><p> </p><p>Nick, kneeling down by the bag, started to pull the garbage back up and around the canvas bag. With a quick jerk of his head down the dirt trail, he explained, “What? Those two? They’re not suspects, Detective Hopps.” He shook his head.</p><p> </p><p><em> I’ll be the judge of that, fox! </em> She snarled to herself, watching his paws carefully twist the lumpy and misshapen bag shut. “Ranger Wilde… What’s in the bag?”</p><p> </p><p>Neither he nor the hogs had explained to her what exactly their little transaction had entailed, only that the swine hadn’t expected to see her, and Nick had been very cagey about details, including the envelope that had just exchanged paws. She wanted to believe that the fox was on the level, but the bloody bag belied that belief. <em> What is he hiding? What have I found? What have I been lured into now? </em></p><p> </p><p>He spun on the balls of his feet to face her, and cocked his head at the bag with a nod, “This?” He asked, as a little grin turned up the corner of his mouth.</p><p> </p><p>Judy set her teeth, “Yes. Show me. Please.” She eased into a ready stance, her right foot sliding back to support her weight.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright… If you want to know...” His grin grew larger, and he turned back to the bag. Untwisting the neck, he reached in and pull out something long and wet, holding it up to her nose for her to examine.</p><p> </p><p>Judy, thinking that he had just pulled out mammal entrails from the bag, recoiled as her paw slid under her coat trying to find her holster.</p><p> </p><p>Nick, noting her reaction as she fell back, smirked cheerfully as he announced a single word.</p><p> </p><p>“SNAKE!”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Bagman and the Bunny</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Nick has some explaining to do to a suspicious bunny!  After he satisfies her incessant demands, she offers a paw in return, and Chief Bogo is pleased by what he sees.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Oh... Look, another chapter.  That must mean I'm procrastinating on Measure of a Mission's first chapter.  Darn, ya caught me.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Judy jumped back a pace as she glared in revulsion at the rent reticulated reptile that the snarky renard held up for her review.</p><p> </p><p>“There’s a snake in your paw, Ranger Wilde!” She screeched!</p><p> </p><p>“I just said that, didn’t I?” Nick looked at the mass of meat in his paw.</p><p> </p><p>“I hate snakes, Wilde, I hate em!” She yelled at him.</p><p> </p><p>He looked back at her with a gimlet eye, “C’mon, show a little backbone, will ya? It’s just a little snake.”</p><p> </p><p>“Are you batty, fox? That snake is longer than you are!” <em> Males and their damn sense of size! </em></p><p> </p><p>“So it is...” Nick lowered the end he was holding so that he could look into the bag, “Anacondas, ya know… they keep going and going...”</p><p> </p><p>“Anaconda? Wait a minute...” Judy scowled at the bloody stump held in his paw, “Where is it’s head?”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, um… You see, they had to chop it off first and um...” Nick pursed his lips as he tucked the snake back into the bag.</p><p> </p><p>She slitted her eyes as she focused intently on the back of his head, “All right, give it up! What’s the con?” She demanded to know.</p><p> </p><p>He looked back at her, his face radiating innocence, “Con? What con?”</p><p> </p><p>“You know exactly what I mean, Mr Fox! You meet some hillbilly biker boars deep in the wood, they give you a bloody bag, and you give them an envelope full of cash! What’s going on? What the hell are you going to do with that snake?” <em> Is he smuggling drugs into Zootopia, hidden inside the carcass of reptiles supposedly dumped in the woods? </em></p><p> </p><p>“Sausages.” He nodded to her.</p><p> </p><p>“What?” She looked at him in disbelief.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m gonna make a lot of it into sausages.” He gestured with his paws, pantomiming stuffing meat into a tube.</p><p> </p><p>Her jaw dropped, “You’re kidding me!”</p><p> </p><p>“Nope. Gonna add in some ground basil, maybe some cracked pepper, and then fry em up with some chopped peppers and unions.”</p><p> </p><p>“Huh?” She hadn’t expected him to actually eat it.</p><p> </p><p>“For breakfast, ya know? Also cut off some steaks, maybe make some burger patties, and what not.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’re gonna eat all of that?” She wrinkled her nose as she pointed at the bag.</p><p> </p><p>“Eventually, sure. It’s not that big of an anaconda; just a baby, really.”</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, if it’s just meat, why are you buying it off of redneck swine in the middle of nowhere instead of a carnivore’s butcher’s shop? I’m not convinced this legal and all, since they didn’t seem so happy to see me. What’s the rub?” She demanded.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, um… Not exactly...” He hemmed and hawed.</p><p> </p><p>She shook her handcuffs out of her pocket, and dangled them from her finger, “Am I gonna have to slap the cuffs on ya, Slick?”</p><p> </p><p>“Ah, rabbit, you say the nicest things to me...” He smirked as he picked up the bag and slung it over his shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>Judy just glared at him, her cuffs dangling from her paws. She contemplated just shooting him right there just to stop that smirking face.</p><p> </p><p>He sighed, perhaps deciding that baiting the bunny had gone on long enough and explained, “It’s more of a loophole thing, really. If I, as a parks ranger, had killed an invasive snake like this here anaconda, I would have to turn the entire snake in to my department for testing, so the staff zoologists can examine the whole thing. But if a private citizen kills an invasive snake during hunting season, like those two boars did, all they have to do is turn in the head. They can keep the rest or they can legally sell it to any member of the public except restaurants or butcher shops, which would be a health code violation. That means they can sell the carcass to a ranger, or a bunny police detective, without restriction. Like they did with me.” He jerked a thumb at his chest.</p><p> </p><p>“Earnest and Earl just thought you were another ranger, probably a supervisor, and they didn’t want to get their hunting license revoked. Once I told them you were just a cop, they calmed down.” He shrugged with one shoulder as he started walking back toward the top of the ravine.</p><p> </p><p>“What?!” Judy objected, “I thought...” She trailed off…</p><p> </p><p>“You thought what, Carrots?” he prodded her gently.</p><p> </p><p>“Um… I thought… Sorry, I’m sure…” She trailed off, coming to a halt. He turned and looked at her, waiting for her to collect her thoughts. She sighed, “I thought they were delivering a bloody mammal body to you in a bag, and you were paying them for the hit.”</p><p> </p><p>Nick blinked. His jaw dropped open. He blinked again, suddenly at a loss for words, before finally finding his tongue, “Really, Detective Hopps… Wow… Well, all I can say is that you have a really active imagination there, Detective.” He shook his head, and started walking down the dirt road again.</p><p> </p><p>Judy hurried to catch up, “I’m sorry. It’s just… I saw the TUSKS logo on their back, and I thought they were members of some biker gang, and then he pulled out that bloody bag and…” She trailed off.</p><p> </p><p>Nick snorted a laugh, “Gang? Well, maybe, I guess. If you count fraternal orders, I suppose. T.U.S.K.S means ‘Take Up yon Swords, o’ Knights of Sus.’ They’re a fraternal order of boars, running around doing volunteer work at hospitals, drive those little cars during parades, that sort of thing.” He jerked his muzzle back toward the retreating pigs, “Those two have been hunting out here with their lodge going on ten years now. Earl’s a hydrology engineer back home, and Earnest’s an architect, I think. HVAC systems, or something like that. They’re good swine.” He paused to look down at her, “Besides, they just flew in from the Great Lakes region yesterday morning. I know that cause I was at the front office yesterday afternoon when they came to verify their hunting licenses for the reptile bounty program, and we negotiated for a little snake on the side.”</p><p> </p><p>They walked around a bend in the road, and a gaggle of mammal vehicles came into view, parked haphazardly among the trees. Nick pointed to a gray parks and recreations 4×4 truck, “Let me put this bag into my ice chest, and we can rejoin the rest of the mammals down below.” Nick let down the tailgate, and slid the bag into a red cooler laying in the bed. Closing the tailgate, he nodded toward the other trail leading down, “Shall we?”</p><p> </p><p>Judy nodded, looking around at the parked ZPD cruisers and CSU vans. There was something missing. “Wait a minute? Where are all the dragons you said would be up here?”</p><p> </p><p>Nick looked around as well, “Probably scattered into the forests. They don’t like the all new sounds and smells here. They’re pretty solitary reptiles anyway, so once they finished sunning themselves, they would have gone off to hunt in the woods.” She eyed the trees nervously. He caught her glance and reminded her, “Don’t worry, Detective. You and I can easily outrun them.” He started down the overgrown trail that Judy and Bogo had walked down earlier when they had first arrived at the scene.</p><p> </p><p>Judy was silent for a few yards as they walked along. She peered over the edge of the ravine at the beehive of activity down below here, as CSU offices and park rangers dug at the ground with shovels and trowels. Embarrassed at the way she had behaved earlier, she drew herself up and announced, “Ranger Wilde, I owe you an apology.”</p><p> </p><p>He stopped and turned to her, “Oh? What for?”</p><p> </p><p>She drew in a deep breath, “I jumped to conclusions about what I had just witnessed, and I want to say that I’m sorry for that.” She held out her paw to him.</p><p> </p><p>He looked down at the offered paw, and biting back a snarky comment about her being a rabbit and jumping, he took it and gave it a shake. “I understand. It’s not a big deal. Besides, you didn’t know what was going on.” He said as he let go of her paw.</p><p> </p><p>She cocked her head down at the crime scene, “Yeah, well, I should still know better. In my limited defense, I would say that being on the police force for fifteen years has made me suspicious of every mammal I encounter. It tends to make me snippy and solitary, I suppose.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, I know something about solitary...” Nick nodded to her. She looked back up at him. He explained, “Park Ranger? We tend to work alone, cut off from other mammals.”</p><p> </p><p>She nodded, “Yeah…” She coughed, “Um… Can I ask a favor?”</p><p> </p><p>He shrugged, “Sure?”</p><p> </p><p>She dropped her ears in entreaty, “Can you not mention the whole freak out thing to my boss? He thinks I’m too anti-social as it is, and he’d probably send me off to the department shrink for a good head scrubbing.” She grimaced, “I mean, you saved my life from the caiman, and drove off the turkey, and got me breakfast, and all I was was suspicious and jumpy in return.” She turned her great amethyst eyes up to him, “Please?”</p><p> </p><p>He considered her request before asking himself, “Alright, as long I can get a favor in return?”</p><p> </p><p>“Shoot!”, she said.</p><p> </p><p>He placed a paw on his chest, “I am a crack shot, you know!” She snorted, but waved her paw in a circle for him to get on with it. He asked her, “Can you not mention the snake carcass to my boss?” He nodded down at the scene below them, “All the blood down there is gonna make her nervous, and she’s liable to take my head off over that.” He grinned nervously as he held out his paw to her.</p><p> </p><p>She beamed a smile up at him as she took his paw back and shook it briskly, “Sure!” <em> They could keep each others’ secrets! </em>She knew.</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you,” he said as he patted her paw with his other paw before releasing it. Hold out his arm, he pointed down the path. “Shall we get back to work?”</p><p> </p><p>She nodded and with her mood buoyed, she skipped down the path in front of him.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Bogo stood in the middle of the milling mammals, doing his best to look like he was supervising, but truth be told he had little to do. His CSU mammals were going about their work efficiently and effectively, leaving him to wonder what exactly he was doing there.</p><p> </p><p>He scowled for moment as the path leading out of the ravine and into the wood. His dimunitive detective had been gone too long, and she and the fox should be back by now. He contemplated going after them when his ear twitched, and he turned his head up to the cliff face.</p><p> </p><p><em> Oh, never mind. There they are, </em> he realized. <em> Somehow they had made it all the way back around. </em> He watched as they walked down the path, and stopped to talk to each other. They shook paws, and after a little more talking shook paws again, before starting down the path again.</p><p> </p><p><em> Mungu! </em> <em> Is she skipping? Is she actually happy for once in her life? They must have made up!  </em>He realized.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Good! That will make the Park Director’s latest request easier to implement! </em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Wank The Rabbit</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Judy gets home after a long day in the field, and contemplates one last snack before bed time.  Meanwhile, on the other side of the Zootopia Bay, Nick has one last chore to do before he can accept slumber's sweet embrace.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Yes, I'm still around and writing.  It turned out that I was deemed "essential" and work has been kicking my butt in the midst of this pandemic - I'm the only IT guy in the whole corporate office and two warehouses right now.  So I haven't had the time for writing that I would like.</p>
<p>But enough whining.  Here's the next chapter - It's a juicy one!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Good Night, Sir!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Judy slowly waved as Bogo’s cruiser pulled away from the curb in front of her apartment building. She sighed quietly, exhausted from a long day spent in the trenches. She had mostly spent the time assisting the CSU team in documenting the twenty bodies that they had pulled from the swampy soil, all in differing stages of decomposition. At first the techs had thought the victims had all been predators, as they all shared the curious damaged claws, until they unearthed the skeleton of a sheep late in the afternoon. A ram, as evidenced by the horns, and judging by the state of decomposition, perhaps one of the first victims buried in the ravine.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Why was he buried there, in among all those other predators. It was a mystery.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>Judy shook her head, shaking herself out of her reverie. She would gain no more answers this evening, standing on the concrete as the setting sun bathed the city in rose-gold twilight. Answers would have to wait for the morning’s dawn, and with them </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>would come </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>a raft of </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>new </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>questions</span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>, no doubt.</span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>S</span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>he climbed the over-sized stairway to the front door </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>of the Pangolin Arms</span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>, stairs plainly meant for larger mammals than her. Arriving at the top slightly out of breath, she collected herself for a moment before standing and swinging through the cavernase front doors. Taking a right, she trotted down </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>the hallway to </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>the </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>undersized apartment that she had occupied for her entire career. Open the tall door, she slipped into her apartment. A creature of habit, she dropped her keys on the corner dresser top and crossed over to the mini fridge for a last minute snack before bed, but to no avail. </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <em>
        <span>
          <span>Crap! I forgot to get food. Do I want to run to the store, or just say fucking it? Maybe smoke that last cigarette and call it a night?</span>
        </span>
      </em>
    </span>
  </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>She took out her cigarette pack </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>from her breast pocket, shaking </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>out </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>her lighter and </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>the last </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>remaining</span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span> stick </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>into her palm. She scowled at the empty pack in aggravation, as if the paper and plastic box had intentionally sought to deny her cravings. With a grimace, she crumpled the empty pack and tossed it into </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>her</span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span> garbage can. </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <em>
        <span>
          <span>Gonna need a new pack for tomorrow</span>
        </span>
      </em>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>, she groused. </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>She crossed the room to stand before the open window.</span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>Slipping the butt in between her her lips, she cupped her paws around the tip, and flicked the Bic, the flaring light of the butane flame illuminated the dirt still crusted around her claw tips. With a couple of well practiced puffs, she lit the tip and took a long drag of the sweet smoke. She slipped the lighter back into </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>the side </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>pocket, and as she did </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>so </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>she could feel the long stalk of the last cattail shoot that the crafty fox had given her. </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>Grasping</span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span> the </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>thick</span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span> shaft, </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>she</span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span> pulled it out </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>into the dying </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>evening </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>light </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>to examine</span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>.</span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>Holding it up before her nose, she gazed </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>at the foxy rouge flesh, only slight wilted </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>for</span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span> the time that it had spent </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>cocooned </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>in her </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>warm </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>hip pocket, waiting patiently for the moment when it would </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>finally </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>pass between her hungry lips. </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>She snorted in disbelief, </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>shaking</span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span> her </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>head as she pondered the gift he had given her.</span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Looking along tapered length of cool flesh, she giggled for a moment before setting her smoldering smoke stick in the ashtray on the window sill. Her paw now free, she reached out and stroked down the length with a blunted claw.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Why, Mr. Wilde, it’s so big!” She whispered breathlessly, “I want a taste!” Her tongue darted out from between her parted lips and wet the tip. Closing her eyes, she slide the shaft slowly into her mouth as the ever expanding girth stretching her lips wider, muffling her moans. Lost in her fantasy, she drove it deeper into her hot and wet mouth, it’s thick mass filling her throat and mind with bliss.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Until she choked.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“<b>HAAAARRRGGGGGGHHHHUUUUUTTTTTT!!!!”</b></p>
<p> </p>
<p>She spit the cattail stalk back out of her mouth with a spasm, the firm length slipping from her fingers and falling to the floor with a wet splat. She coughed and wheezed, pounding her chest with a fist, trying to get her breathing under control.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“SEE! I told you, rabbit! You keep wrapping your lips around that cancer stick, and it will be the death of you! You should quit while you’re still alive!” Her neighbor Buck yelled through the thin apartment wall.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Oh, leave the poor bunny alone! Can’t you see how pent up and stressed she is? If she needs to suck on something to make it though the day, who are we to argue?” Pronk yelled back, jumping to her defense.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Shut Up! Rabbits don’t live that long! She needs to take care of herself, not smoking her way into an early grave!” Buck retorted angrily.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No, you SHUT UP! Who cares what she puts in her mouth?! It’s her body, her business!” Pronk blasted back.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“YOU SHUT UP!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“NO, YOU SHUT UP!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>While they argued on her behalf just beyond the wall, Judy lay on the floor, her gasps turning into giggles as her mind took their well meant comments and wrapped them up in innuendo, firing off her foxy fantasy once again. Reaching down with one paw she quickly unsnapped her pants, while with the other paw she reached out for his gift with a fay light in her eyes and a smile smoldering on her muzzle.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Mr Wilde, I might not be able to verbally interrogate you in full tonight and gain that signed confession that I so desire, but I’m sure that with vigorous investigation mutually professional intercourse can be achieved!</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p>At the same time as Judy was waving good by to Bogo, Ranger Nick Wilde was nearing his destination. He drove his pickup up the dusty mountain road that laid upon the ridge line that ran around the Zootopia Bay, looking for one particular turn off that lead down to the hill. As soon as he reached it, he turned his truck down the path and drove into the forest gloom. He drove for a spell, bouncing along the ruts and weeds that grew along the path until he reached a small meadow overlooking the bay. In the middle of that meadow sat a small silver vintage camping trailer with a picnic bench and a fire barrel in front of it’s awning.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He parked his truck behind the trailer and slid tiredly out of the driver’s seat. He desired the comforts of his bed, but before he could seek that warm embrace, he still had one last task to perform this night. He walked around to the tail of his pickup and yanked open the tailgate. Sliding out the cooler, he carried it over to the picnic table. Opening it up, he reached in and pulled the snake carcass from the plastic bag. Attaching the bloody stump to a hook at the end of the table, he stretched the rest of the snake out along the length of the table. Pulling out his knife, he quickly and expertly slit the snake’s belly all the way down to the cloaca, but before he could reach in and pull out the viscera, his phone rang. He looked down at the phone in a mixture of exasperation and annoyance. He slid the knife back into the snake’s open body and picked up his phone to answer the call.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yeah, what? …No, I’m busy, that’s what. ...Yes, I realize we have a schedule to meet. ...Well, I disagree. Strongly. ...No, I gave you my word. You of all mammal’s knows what that’s worth, and that should be enough for everyone else involved. ...Uh Huh… You’ll see. She is going to work out perfectly for our needs.” He shut down the phone and laid it down on the picnic bench, daring it to ring again.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Smiling as it lay silent for spell, he reached over and pulled out his knife from the guts of the serpent. He held it up before his nose, staring at it in the fading evening light almost reverently, and with a quiver he snapped opened his jaws and swiftly licked his tongue along length of the bloody blade.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Dire Dreams</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Judy's dream starts out so well, but quickly takes a turn for the worse.  Waking up, she finds her day may not be much better!</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The turbid night sky clung to the ebon city like sodden canvas, drowning Judy’s apartment in a stifling heat. The room was saturated with the musk of lustful lapin, redolent with earthy loam. She writhed on her sweat soaked sheets, moaning his name over and over, her blunted claws raking windrows across moonlit fur, her silk camisole twisted and tight across her erect nipples.</p><p> </p><p>His eyes, filled with a flashing emerald fire, watched her languid dance with an insatiable hunger, his twitching ears consuming her every twitch and moan. With a fey electric grin twining along his lips, he bent his muzzle back to lap vigorously from her abundant wellspring. His rapier like tongue darted left and right, probing her defenses, seeking an opening through which he could finish his assault upon her reserves, and thus avail himself of the sweet nectar of triumphant victory that she so jealously guarded.</p><p> </p><p>“ENOUGH!” She screamed!</p><p> </p><p>Planting both feet upon his laughing muzzle, she pushed him away as she lay there panting. Gasping for breath she bit out, “Enough...” to which he only replied with a snicker. She meet his laughing countenance with a gimlet eye, and with a feral set to her jaw, she struggle to her knees. Placing a paw upon his chest, she firmly pushed him back. With her other paw, she reached down to the fly of his khaki shorts. “My turn...” She grinned silkily up at him, her eyes alight with greed and need.</p><p> </p><p>He chuckled down at her, “I don’t know, rabbit. I really don’t think you can handle it.”</p><p> </p><p>Her paw slowly drawing down the zipper slider, she baited him playfully, “Oh, I assure you that I can accommodate your handle, Mr Fox, just you watch!” Kneeling between his opened thighs, she slide her other paw into his hidden nethers, seeking a sign that his arousal matched hers and found it, straining to be free of it’s cotton prison. As she slipped her paw around behind it and slid down the length he tilted his head back with a sigh.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh… Gawd, Carrots...” He moaned.</p><p> </p><p>Amused, a little grin out upon her muzzle, and with a gently tug on the binding elastic that separated her from her prize, she coaxed his male member out to join her in the moonlight. Running both paws down his thick root, she marveled at the dark carmine color. Unbidden, a silly thought flashed through her mind and she snickered, <em> I’m beeting his meat! </em></p><p> </p><p> </p><p>But that juxtaposition of mental imagery coupled with his heady aroma was enough to make her mouth water. She had to taste it. She had to consume it. It belonged to her. It had always been hers. Ducking her head, she nuzzled along the rigid length with her twitching nose, drinking in his scent even as she felt the light pulsing of his heart through his taunt skin. Running her nose in a circle around the tip, she finally opened her lips for a taste of what was to come.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s it...” He crooned, sliding his paws down around the back of her head, his thumbs riding up to claim the base of her ears, his fingers reaching around behind her skull, locking her head in place.</p><p> </p><p>He had her right where she wanted to be, and now she would show him just how much she could handle, she vowed. Opening up her mouth, she slipped in just the tip, wetting it with her darting tongue, moistening it for it’s eventual journey down her throat. His paws, at first resting comfortably on the back of her skull, now applied slow but insistent pressure, drawing her inexorably towards his belly. She widened her lips, stretching her jaws further apart, as she struggled to accommodate his ever increasing girth.</p><p> </p><p>“Just relax. That’s it, relax. No need to struggle.” He spoke gently even as his paws locked on to her skull, his strong arms forcing her head further down. “To bad you can’t unhinge your jaws, like a snake can.”</p><p> </p><p>She could barely breath as he finally slid to a stop deep inside her skull, her mouth filled and her throat almost completely blocked. She tried to relax even as her cheeks screamed in agony at being stretched so much, the pain masking her choking reflex at the tickle that danced across the back of her throat.</p><p> </p><p>She batted at his legs, trying to draw in a breath, but it was so hard to fill her lungs and the tickling was making her gag and cough. It kept coming and going, never staying in one place, flicking from one side of her throat to another.</p><p> </p><p>Flicking.</p><p> </p><p>With a horrible realization and with quickly mounting terror, Judy ripped her head free from the grip of his terrible paws, the cold length of flesh that had filled her jaws sliding out with a pop and a gasp. Terrified and hyperventilating, she scrambled back in the bed, looking back at the horror that had erupted from his pants.</p><p> </p><p>It looked back at her with cold steely eyes just as a forked tongue darted out to taste the air between them.</p><p> </p><p>“Aw, what’s wrong, rabbit? Don’t like my fat trouser snake?” the fox chortled as the long head of an green anaconda slid out from his fly, it’s muscular body sliding out to coil between his knees. “Not that it matters. He likes you just fine!” The canine licked his lips, “We think you’re tasty just the way you are!”</p><p> </p><p>She drew in a shuddering breath, preparing to scream, but before a sound could pass her lips, the snake struck, locking it’s jaws around her throat, cutting off her cry. The snake drew up the rest of it’s body, wrapping her in muscular coils. She struggled, fighting to push the serpentine loops away, even as her sight grew dim while her brain starved itself of life-giving oxygen.</p><p> </p><p>“Relax… Relax… It’ all be over soon, Carrots.” He promised her.</p><p> </p><p>Judy’s eyes cast wildly about, looking for something to help her win out, to stave off the literal jaws of death. She spied her service revolver, hanging in it’s shoulder holster from the chair beside her bed. She reached out with a free arm, striving to reach it, but it was too far, and with each desperate movement she made the snake tightened further.</p><p> </p><p>She was running out of time.</p><p> </p><p>Her legs were still free, so she kicked wildly, trying to gain traction on the bed covers, trying to roll her trapped and encumbered body closer to her piece. She reached and kicked, her sight narrowing to a tunnel, locked on the gun just as the snake was locked on to throat. So close, almost there…</p><p> </p><p>She fell.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>WHAM!</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Judy awoke with a start as her body hit the bare wooden floorboards beside her bed. Her head ringing from the impact, she lay there dazed for a moment before she could take stock of her situation. After a few moments of rest, she looked up and shook her head to clear it of the mental cobwebs of sleep. Looking down, she found that she wasn’t wrapped up in her ravenous sleep snake, but in the tight coils of her expensive silk sheets.</p><p> </p><p>Pulling her arms free from the wound and bound cloth, she rubbed her eyes with the base of her paw-palms. Blinking away the crusties in her eyes, she looked blearily back up at her alarm clock. 3 AM, it read. She struggled out of the wrapped sheets, and lay against the side of the bed with a sigh, thinking about the dream. Like so much of her life, it had started out with such promise, but had quickly devolved into a nightmare. As she sat there, clutching her shaking knees to her chest, Judy Hopps began to silently weep.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Three hours later, Judy walk along the dark early morning sidewalks, puffing on a cheap cigarette. Unable to go back to sleep after her erotic dream had taken a turn of the macabre, she had been forced to wait until the corner store on her block had opened up so that she could go buy cigarettes, only to find out they were out of her regular brand. She bought some off-brand menthols, thinking their bitter taste would wake her up, but the horrid taste just reminded her of the dream.</p><p> </p><p>Trundling along the cold concrete in her gray ZPD pant suit, trench coat and fedora, she pondered the lessons of the night. Why had she cried? Relief that the nightmare had been over? Frustration that her need had gone unfulfilled?  The bitter loneliness of an empty bed?</p><p> </p><p>Thirty eight and never mated, Judy was in truth a very lonely and bitter bunny, with what relationships she did have being brief sparks of joy quickly snuffed out by the realities of her dreary existence. Rabbits weren’t meant to be alone. She should have been married and had kits by now. But no, she had chosen a career that gave no quarter and tolerated no other lovers, the only solace being left to her by it were the acrid tastes of her abiding addictions: cigarettes and murder.</p><p> </p><p><em> God… what a depressing line of thought… I must really be exhausted… What the hell am I doing here?   </em>She wondered for the thousandth time, a question she asked herself every morning.</p><p> </p><p>Finally arriving at the entrance to the ZPD just as the dawn broke over the city with glad and glorious cry, she squinted against the glare and scowled. Dammit, it was going to be a fine day, and she was in too foul of a mood to enjoy it, she knew. She snubbed out the awful cigarette, and walked into the bustling heart of ZPD Precinct One to face yet another day.  Trudging up the stairs to the detectives' bullpen, she grunted out greetings to fellow officers as they passed her, not really recognizing their presence other than just another passing body. She turned a corner to the coffee station, and punched up an order for a 4 oz coffee, black to match her mood.</p><p> </p><p>Sipping on the vile public service brew, her ears beginning to perk if not from the caffeine then from the pain of her scalded tongue, she worked her way through the throng of other detectives, only to stop mere yards from her desk. She stared at her desk in confusion, her addled brain struggling to cope with the juxtaposition of objects before her. Nothing was missing, thank God, her coworkers knowing better than to fuck with her stuff. No, nothing was missing or out of place.</p><p> </p><p>No, what was wrong was what had been added. A chair had been moved over from it’s place along the wall and nestled up against the side of her desk. Perched on that chair, clad in his khaki shorts and service shirt, a wide brimmed hate upon his brow, humming a nameless tune, was the last mammal Judy wanted to deal with this morning.</p><p> </p><p>He was far to fucking chipper this morning, and his cheerful presence grated at every exposed nerve that Judy had left in her after her terrible night. She was momentarily torn with indecision, her mind still slow as the caffeine hadn’t kicked in yet. She contemplated going somewhere quiet, like the morgue, where she could scream out her frustrations in peace. Because if she was going to have to deal with God’s Gift to Mammal-Kind Ranger Nick Wilde this early in the morning, she was definitely murder some mammal herself!</p><p> </p><p>Luckily, her dilemma was solved by the timely arrival of a brass bovine bellow.</p><p> </p><p>“HOPPS!”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Caverns of Despair</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Called to the boss' office, Judy's thoughts drift back to her previous encounters with authority, and the consequences that ensued.  Fifteen years ago, she was exiled to the far corners of the ZPD basement, toiling away to clear the accumulated detritus of police paperwork.  Utter alone, she almost gave into despair, only to find that there were still mammals willing to help her.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Yes!  I'm still alive, just overworked!  My boss retired, and I've been saddled with figuring out where he stood on all our various IT projects.  Doesn't leave me a lot of time to write anymore, I'm sorry to say.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>“HOPPS!”</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>Judy’s instantaneous reaction was to cringe as the brass bellow echoed down the long hallways, thinking that perhaps she had either done something horribly wrong or that a certain cape buffalo needed somebody, anybody, to yell at this morning and she had drawn the short straw. “Swell,” she muttered under her breath. “Just swell.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>
    <span>
      <em>
        <span>
          <span>F</span>
        </span>
      </em>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <em>
        <span>
          <span>uck. Well, it’s not like I’</span>
        </span>
      </em>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <em>
        <span>
          <span>ve had a chance to file any paperwork from yesterday, so he must just have a hornet up his ass </span>
        </span>
      </em>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <em>
        <span>
          <span>over some stupid bullshit</span>
        </span>
      </em>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <em>
        <span>
          <span> and he </span>
        </span>
      </em>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <em>
        <span>
          <span>feels</span>
        </span>
      </em>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <em>
        <span>
          <span> needs to share the sensation with a captive audience, and that audience is me today. </span>
        </span>
      </em>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <em>
        <span>
          <span>Oh Joy!</span>
        </span>
      </em>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <em>
        <span>
          <span> It’s turning out to just be a wonderful fucking morning, and I haven’t even had </span>
        </span>
      </em>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <em>
        <span>
          <span>my </span>
        </span>
      </em>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <em>
        <span>
          <span>coffee yet.</span>
        </span>
      </em>
    </span>
  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>Pulling off her fedora in resignation to her fate, she tucked it under her arm and trundled down the hallway toward Bogo’s office, acutely aware of every mammals eye watching her as she walked the long green mile to her execution. She reached his office, and paused with her paw on the panel. She could see the shadowy outlines of the cape buffalo’s horns through the frosted glass, like some demonic creature stalking her in a cold fog, looking to devour her soul as it rends her flesh.</p><p> </p><p><em>How many times have I stood here, dreading this very moment?</em> She wondered. <em>You would think that after the first time this happens, I would get used to getting yelled at by the bloody ox. </em>Her mind still not fully focused from the lack of stimulating caffeine, her unbidden thoughts drifted back in time.</p><p> </p><p>* * *</p><p> </p><p>15 years earlier…</p><p> </p><p>Judy trundled down the long dusty aisle in between the towering shelves filled with rows upon rows of dark brown boxes, the sound of her footfalls quickly swallowed by the cavernous expanse of the ZPD basement file room. A golden blur flicked across her sullen gaze, interrupting her contemplation of the layers of dust on the shelves in between the boxes. She glances up at the broad expanse of the portly Sargent as he lead her deeper into the concrete and steel abyss. He whistled cheerfully, completely off tune, causing her ears to twitch in annoyance.</p><p> </p><p>“Wow, you must have really pissed off the Chief if he assigned you to the Cold Cases department!” Sargent Clawhauser blurted out, “And on your second day here, too!” He turned to look down on her with a grin, “That’s a new record!”</p><p> </p><p>She looked up in confusion at him and asked, “What? It’s not a popular posting?”</p><p> </p><p>The cheetah bobbed his head, his whiskers twitching in time to his spoken cadence, “Oh, not really. I mean, it’s not as bad as say parking duty, cause that’s really the worst, but it’s not a place any mammal really wants to be. It’s so dark, and dusty, and really lonely. Almost nobody ever comes down her if they can help it.” He pointed to a steel mesh door set into the back wall, “Oh! We’re here!”</p><p> </p><p>He reached out with his paw and hooked his claws through the mesh on the face of the door. The door slowly squealed open, it’s tortured hinges protesting their change in rotational inertia. He stepped inside and gestured for her to follow, “Anyway, here’s your new office!”</p><p> </p><p>Judy ducked in under his arms, and peered into the long room lit with dim flickering lights, only to recoil in horror at the multitude of wheeled bins that crowded into the space, overflowing with loose folders, their paper contents spilling out to cover what little floor space there was in between the bins. She dragged her gaze off the sea of files to look at the even more monstrous desk that crowded into a far corner, the edge of it’s flat surface easily twice her height and filled from edge to edge with yet another mountain of files, threatening to collapse in an avalanche of triplicates and binder clips.</p><p> </p><p>“What am I supposed to with all of this?” She squeaked, waving her paw at the mass of crowded files.</p><p> </p><p>Sargent Clawhauser tapped his paws together as he looked at the forest of files, “I hadn’t realize it had gotten so bad!” He turned to looked down at her, “Sargent Twiga usually stayed on top of all of this, but since he retired six months ago, nobody’s been down here since.” He looked down at her in sympathy, “You’ll need to file of these files away in their proper boxes. Sargent Twiga had a very esoteric system for filing them, but I’m sure you’ll figure it out. You were top of your class, weren’t you?” He asked her.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, but...” she breathed out in despair.</p><p> </p><p>He clapped his paws together, “Great! I’ll leave you to it, then!” He shivered, “This place just gives me the creeps!” He quickly made his escape, darting back down the aisle as fast as his portly frame would allow.</p><p> </p><p>Judy stared at his retreating back in disbelief. To think that the big cat was afraid of this place only momentarily distracted her from the herculean task before her. She was a rabbit, and dark underground caverns didn’t bother her. Her father had produce barns just as big as this place on the family farm. It was just that those same barns were usually churning with rabbits hurrying about their tasks, boxing new produce to ship out to all the corners of the Tri-burrows area and beyond. Here she was utterly alone.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Squeeek…</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Her ears perked up as she detected the sound of castor wheels approaching. Somebody was coming! She bounded to the door, grateful for the distraction, and maybe they could explain her job to her better than what the nervous cat had. She peered in the gloom with her lapin eyes as a white blob slowly resolved itself. It was another canvas wheelie bin, piled high with loose files, pushed by a large ram in an auxiliary police uniform. Judy stood up on her toes and waved at him, calling out, “Hi! Um… Hey, uh...”</p><p> </p><p>He turned his sullen gaze to her small blue and gray form, his only response to her called greeting a low and disgusted grunt. He motioned her to get back out of the way while pushing the bin halfway through the door. Leaving it there, trapping her inside the room, he snorted and quickly trotted back the way he had come, his hooves tapping in quick step as he hastened to leave the basement room.</p><p> </p><p>Judy was once again alone, surrounded on all sides by towering piles of paperwork, the only sound available to her ears being the squeal of a worn fan belt echoing down the ventilation ducting.</p><p> </p><p>* * *</p><p> </p><p>Three days later she lay on the floor of the warehouse, a banker box worth of files upended and spilled all over her, shedding it’s contents like an avalanche of triplicate all over her prone form. She sniffed, tears leaking from her eyes, as she fought against the despair and humiliation of being given a job she could not easily do. The clouds of dust stirred up by the falling banker box didn’t help either. She sneezed, the sound echoing through shelves. She wiped her nose with her sleeve, and struggle out from under the reams of paperwork piled on top of her.</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>
    <span>“</span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>Hello?” A light baritone voice called out. Judy’s ears perked up, searching for the voice. Some mammal had entered into the basement, but she had never even heard them approach. She cast her eyes to the sound of the voice, but as the mammal approached, Judy was forced to crane her neck back to stare up at the tall feline form clad in </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>gold fur and </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>ZPD blue approach her from down the </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>dark </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>aisle.</span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>The large cat called out again, her large yellow eyes flashing in the overheat lights, “Do you need some help?</span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>Judy felt a shiver chase down her spine, as she </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>watched the large tigress pad silently up to her and kneel down. The cat reached out with her broad and powerful paws and gently started to remove the pile of folders that Judy lay buried under. She felt so helpless, laying there trapped, completely at the mercy of a far larger predator, but the big cat didn’t look down at her in aggression o</span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>r</span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span> hunger, </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>rather </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>just quiet concern as she picked up the </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>spilled </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>paperwork and set it aside.</span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>
    <span>“<span><span><span>Yes, Please? Thank you...” Judy replied in relief “Um...” She squinted as she tried to read the officer’s name tag, “Um, thank you, Officer Fangmeyer.” Freed of the pile of papers, Judy scooted backwards and struggled to stand up. Fangmeyer held out her paw to help and Judy took it, hoisting herself to her feet. She stood there for a moment, looking down at her tiny rabbit paw, dwarfed by the broad expanse that held her professed limb gently. She looked up at the large muzzle, golden eyes alight in the dark, and murmured, “Thank you.”</span></span></span></span>
  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>
    <span>“<span><span><span>My pleasure,” The larger cat rumbled, “Officer Hopps, is it?”</span></span></span></span>
  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>
    <span>“<span><span><span>Yup, that’s me!” Judy replied brightly, finally glad that somebody here knew her name.</span></span></span></span>
  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>The feminine feline grinned back </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>down at her spunk</span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>, “I’m pleased to </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>finally</span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span> meet you.”</span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>Judy clasped her other paw to the back of the tigress’ </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>large </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>mitt </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>and tried to shake it in thanks. It was like trying to move a </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>twenty ton </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>hydraulic press, but she gave it her best effort </span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>none the less</span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>
          <span>. She replied brightly.</span>
        </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>
    <span>“<span><span><span>Likewise!”</span></span></span></span>
  </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Bad News Bull</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Chief Bogo give Judy an offer she can't refuse!</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Yes, I know this is late!  I'm sorry, I really am!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“<b>HOPPS!” </b></p><p> </p><p>Detective Judy Hopps was shaken from her reverie by the brassy bovine bellow, it’s pulsating power vibrating the very glass in the door under her paw. Judy grimaced as she shook her head, to clear the cobwebs from her mind and the ringing from her ears. Steeling herself for the confrontation before her, she pushed her way into his office.</p><p> </p><p>“I heard you the first time, Boss.” She greeted him testily, holding the door open with one light paw.</p><p> </p><p>He looked up from his data tablet with a scowl. Waving the tablet at the door, he motioned with his other hoof for her to take a seat. “I was just making sure you saw me first thing this morning. I didn’t want you wandering off or anything.” He set the tablet down on the oaken expanse of his weather-beaten desk and steepled his hooves as he stared down at her climb into the over sized chair, his muzzle alight with a saccharin smile that never really reached his eyes.</p><p> </p><p>Judy settled down in the chair as she turned to face him, “Wander off?” She held up her phone, “You could call, you know?”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh...” He dipped a hoof to his tablet and spun it around, “Somethings require a more personal touch.” he said, never taking his eyes off her.</p><p> </p><p>She sighed. With just a touch of headache from the sonic assault and a lack of caffeine, she rubbed her forehead and waved for him to continue, “Somethings being?” She prompted him.</p><p> </p><p>Staring down at his tablet, now askew on his expansive desk, he placed both hooves on the desk, “Warden Ziege was very impressed with you yesterday, and in the course of discussing the merits of the case with me she had inquired as to the possibility of you taking lead in the investigation, being that her department severely lacked the investigative resources to pursue a case of this magnitude.” Bogo gestured toward Judy, “I whole heartedly agreed with her. You are the best mammal for the job.” He paused for a moment to gauge her reaction.</p><p> </p><p><em> If he just wanted to pat me on the back at the same time he dumped the case on the lap, why was he yelling so goddamn</em><em> early? Great… He’s gotta be buttering me for something unpleasant. </em> Judy was too experienced, or too jaded, to take Bogo’s words at face value. She waited, stone faced, for the descending sandbag hurtling toward her furry head.</p><p> </p><p>Slightly disappointed that she didn’t rise to the compliment, he continued with, “That being said, there was an issue of legal jurisdiction, since the mammal bodies had been found in her park. To satisfy those legal issues with her superiors, she asked if it was be possible for one of her rangers to observe our operation.”</p><p> </p><p>Judy’s ears fell. <em> No…. He can’t mean that… </em>she thought frantically.</p><p> </p><p>Bogo continued off-hoof, “Being that you would probably have to come back to the park to gather more evidence, I thought that the ranger in question might have to do more than just observe your investigation starting today, and that it would be far simpler if, for the course of the investigation of course, if I were to deputize him to act as your partner in this...”</p><p> </p><p>Judy rocketed to her feet as she interrupted him angrily, her hat flying from her paws, “SIR! You promised me that I would never have to take another partner here at the ZPD!” She pointed her paw at his eyes.</p><p> </p><p>He held up his hooves in pacification, “Yes, yes I did. Here at the ZPD. But this is different. It’s a multi jurisdictional issue, and besides it’s just for the duration of this case...”</p><p> </p><p>Judy sputtered in her agitation, “I can’t do a repeat of Benjamin, I can’t! I just can’t!”</p><p> </p><p>Bogo held up his paw, trying to forestall her objections, “Detective Hopps, Hopps, JUDY!” He finally got her attention, “What happened to Sargent Clawhauser was NOT your fault!” He leaned in, concern for his smallest detective etched in every hair on his face, “It wasn’t your fault, Judy...”</p><p> </p><p>Judy sat back down with a thump, “But….” Her objections petered out into an incoherent mumble as she stared at his desk, already lost in painful memories.</p><p> </p><p>Bogo continued gently, “It wasn’t your fault, Judy. Clawhauser got too close, and that damn ewe made him pay the price. It’s not your fault. It’s hers.</p><p> </p><p>Judy hung her head as she struggled to consider her bosses words, her mind racing. A word struggle to the fore of the maelstrom of guilt and anger, a simple word actually. A word her boss had just mentioned in passing. A word loaded with meaning above and beyond it’s simple nature as a pronoun.</p><p> </p><p>He.</p><p> </p><p>Him! She sat up, realizing that the park ranger that Bogo was referring to was already here. Sitting at her desk. “Wilde?” She squeaked as she quickly glanced up, and then back toward the bullpen. Her eyes got wide all of a sudden as she realized who she was going to be working with today.</p><p> </p><p>Bogo nodded tiredly. He had agonized over this decision last night, and the emotional toll had prevented him from sleeping soundly, so he missed many of the whipsawing emotions playing out over Judy’s face and body. “Yes, Wilde. I know that you had problems with him in the past, but...”</p><p> </p><p>“Please sir, any other ranger, I’ll partner with. Just not him.” She begged him as she pointed to her desk.</p><p> </p><p>Bogo, expecting more objections about the partnering issue, was confused by her turn of heart, “Uh… You were working so well with him yesterday, I thought you had settled your differences. What’s wrong with him today, then?”</p><p> </p><p><em> NOTHING! </em> Judy’s subconscious mind screamed back at her, as it flooded her thoughts with memories of things that never happened, of flowing fur and rippling muscles. <em> Yet! </em>Judy clenched her legs together and shoved her paws down into her lap, as if to keep certain parts of her anatomy silent by dint of physical restraint. “Nothing...” She mumbled as she stared back into Bogo’s eyes.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay...” He sat back in confusion, a whiff of earthy scent playing across his nose, and wondering where the hell it had come from. “Is there anything wrong with you, then?” He ask her.</p><p> </p><p>She shook her head briskly, “No sir!” She hopped to the ground and grabbing her fallen hat she moved quickly to the door, holding it open for him.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay?” He looked down at her, his brows furrowed, concerned that she had completely flipped on him, turning about 180 degrees on the issue of partnership, but yet had objected to the fox specifically. <em> What is with her and this fox? </em> He wondered as he stood to follow her out.</p><p> </p><p>They walked back to her desk in silence, Judy almost marching across the floor to the brightly waiting red and khaki vulpine, Bogo following behind her still confused by her emotional state. Nick looked up at the towering bull with an easy grin, “Hello, sir.”</p><p> </p><p>Chief Bogo paused besides Judy’s desk, and addressed the Tod. “Ranger Wilde, Detective Hopps has agreed to take you on as her partner for the duration of this investigation.”</p><p> </p><p>“Really?” Nick perked up and looked over at Judy, “Well now.” He drawled.</p><p> </p><p>Bogo looked back down at the slowly smoldering bunny and waited patiently for her confirmation. Realizing that they were both staring at her, she twitched and exploded with, “What?! Yes! Fine! What ever! Let’s do this, and get it over with.” She crossed her arms and stared back at her boss, her foot trembling as she struggled to keep it from tapping impatiently.</p><p> </p><p>Bogo arched a single eyebrow as he watched her display before turning back to stare down at the fox. “Ranger Wilde, you are here by deputized by me to act as Detective Hopps’ partner for the course of the joint investigation of this case, numbered 030416-2031. I remind you that you are beholden to ZPD regulations for the duration of this matter, and I ask that you purport yourself according.”</p><p> </p><p>Nick blinked for a moment before looked back up at the buffalo, “That’s it? I don’t have to take an oath, or maybe fill out some paperwork or something?”</p><p> </p><p>Bogo shook his head, “Only if you were a civilian. As it is, as far the ZPD is concerned, you are a fellow law enforcement officer on loan to the department. Your oath of office as a ranger is sufficient for me and the courts, should your testimony be needed there. As for paperwork, I suggest you ask Detective Hopps about that. I’m sure she would enjoy demonstrating for you on how to properly fill out the proper forms when needed.” Bogo turned one eye down to stare at the diminutive detective before turning on his hoof decisively and striding back to his office.</p><p> </p><p>Nick watched Bogo receding back for only a moment, before turning back to meet the amethyst eyes watching him from under a battered fedora. He clapped his paws to his lap and began with a grin, “So! What forms are we supposed to fill out this morning?”, a slight undertone of sarcasm to his voice.</p><p> </p><p>She frowned at him momentarily before turning smartly on her foot and striding toward the exit. Confused for just a moment, Nick finally hopped down from his chair and hurried after her. “Wait up, Carrots!” He matched her quick pace, “Where are we going?”</p><p> </p><p>She paused at the door, her paw on the frame, before turning to look up at his face.</p><p> </p><p>“We’re going to see an old partner of mine.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Pinstripe Vice</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Judy steps in to visit an old friend and ask her some questions, leaving Wilde behind to make a friend of his own.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Yes!  I'm still alive, just very busy.  Sorry.</p><p>Here ya go!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Partner?” Nick echoed. “What, the wonder gumshoe actually had a partner? You never mentioned that in class! And yet Bogo had to twist your arm to take me on?” Nick cocked his head as he looked down at her striding form with one eye, “What’s the story?”</p><p> </p><p>“Two, actually...” Judy grumbled, “And it’s a long story...”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, do tell!” Nick chuckled. “I’m all ears!” He waggled his ears on either side of his hat band while he winked down at her.</p><p> </p><p>Judy, still a little flummoxed from having forest fox dumped on her lap after her dream filled night, simply swept her fedora from her crown to hold her ears erect.</p><p> </p><p>“Oooo Much bigger than mine! I’m jealous, I really am. So, rabbit. Who’s the former partner? Ursine? Proboscidean, perhaps?” He leaned down so that his muzzle was level with her gaze, “Canine, may chance?” He took in her scent as he sniffed delicately. A sly grin snaked along his narrow muzzle as he intoned with light laughter, “Ho ho! Run with a hare, did you?”</p><p> </p><p>Judy paused in front of a glass door, and half turned her head over her shoulder, “You wish.” With a grin of her own on her muzzle, she uttered a single word as she pushed open the door.</p><p> </p><p>“Felines.”</p><p> </p><p>Taken momentarily back, Nick stood up straight as a hidden shiver chased down his back fur. His eyes bolted up to the writing on the door as the rabbit detective passed through the threshold.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>“ZPD VICE”</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>Concern suddenly appearing upon the cast of his bearing, Nick dawdled at the open door for a moment, lagging behind the advancing rabbit. She strode across the room to a gray steel desk where a gray timber wolf sat, dressed to the nines in a gray pinstriped suit, leaning back in his gray chair and absently chewed on a pencil while staring at a flickering computer screen filled with text.</p><p> </p><p>“Wolfard.” She called out as she approached. The wolf, distracted by his work, didn’t notice her query. She skipped the last few feet to stand beside his chair and stood for a moment beside the distracted canine, until she could no longer stand being ignored.</p><p> </p><p>“WOLFARD!” She yelled louder.</p><p> </p><p>The wolf flinched, his pencil flying from his grasp as he recoiled from the sudden appearance of a small but intense mammal at his side. “CHEESES, HOPPS!” He cried out. “You scared the crap out of me!”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah...” she drawled, “Sure...” not believing a word. “Your boss in?” She asked sweetly, cocking her head at the corner office’s closed door.</p><p> </p><p>Wolfard, searching around him for his missing pencil, nodded as he waved a paw in the direction of that office. Looking back up at the rabbit, he finally noticed Nick walking up to stand behind Judy. He squinted at the smaller canine dressed in khaki.</p><p> </p><p>“Who’s the dodger?” He asked her.</p><p> </p><p>Before Judy could answer, Nick arrived to stand beside her. With a scowl on his brow he pipped up, “Dodger? Look who’s talking, Buddy!” He gestured down at his olive uniform and then at the gray wolf, “At least I don’t looks like some mob wisedog!”</p><p> </p><p>Wolfard started to retort but he quickly ground to a halt, his response withering on his tongue under the onslaught of angry amethyst eyes. Judy held up a paw to silence the two posturing males before they got further along with their insults, having little patience for displays of masculine canine dominance. She turned to leave, but paused for a moment. Without turning around or moving her head, she cocked an ear at the floor behind her, “Wilde. Stay.” and then moved off to the corner office with purpose in her step.</p><p> </p><p>Shocked at being commanded like a wayward kit, Nick stared after her slack-jawed, only to flinch at Wolfard’s sharp bark of laughter. He turned his green eyes, suddenly temper hot, back to that grinning wolf.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Judy knocked on the glass door and without being bidden she pushed into the cramped office. Cramped not because it was small, but because it was filled with filing cabinets of various sizes piled high with forms and folders, the clutter threatening to cascade down up the occupant’s broad feline shoulders.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah…?” the tigress drawled in a tired voice, not yet looking up from her paperwork pile at the intruder. She leaned on the broad desk with both tawny arms, the cuffs of her ivory shirt rolled up to her thick biceps. Her black coat was tossed carelessly across the back of the rickety wooden chair she sat on, it creaking ominously with each slow movements of her powerful body as she shifted, turning each page in one pile over slowly to lay it haphazardly on another shifting pile which threatened to cascade over her desk nameplate and onto the floor at Judy’s feet. A nameplate that stated in bold sulfated brass that ‘<em>Senior Detective-In-Charge Micah Fangmeyer, ZPD VICE</em>’ held court over the disaster at paw.</p><p> </p><p>Judy, a grin alight upon her muzzle as she watched the display, coughed lightly. The tigress flicked her eyes up, and beholding the rabbit’s form she lit up with a grin in response. Sitting up with renewed energy, she greeted the smaller mammal with an enthusiastic, “BUNS!”</p><p> </p><p>“Hey ya, Micah.” Judy paused for a moment, “You up for a visit from an old partner?” She asked, “I need to pick your brain.”</p><p> </p><p>“From you? Always!” She gestured to the sole chair not covered in boxes. “Grab a seat. And leave the door open.”</p><p> </p><p>“Sure,” Judy replied as she crawled into the seat. She turned and watched as Micah leaned to gaze out the open door. Judy turned and tried to see what she was looking at before turning back and looking at the tigress with a furrowed brow.</p><p> </p><p>Staring out the door Micah answered the questing bunny’s gaze, “Just making sure that Wolfard isn’t jerking off or anything.” She flicked her eyes back to meet Judy’s, “He needs constant supervision, you know?”</p><p> </p><p>Judy snickered behind her paw. “Well, he is a male, you know!” She retorted.</p><p> </p><p>Micah snorted as she leaned back in her protesting chair, “Yeah… Speaking of which, what’s with Ranger Rick out there? He with you or something?”</p><p> </p><p>Judy rolled her eyes and with a suffering sigh she groaned, “Yes… He’s on loan from the Forestry department.”</p><p> </p><p>Micah leaned back and gazed back out at the two arguing canines. Her eyes flicked down as she took in all of the newly arrive vulpine, “Nice tail!”</p><p> </p><p>“Micah!” Judy objected.</p><p> </p><p>Her eyes flicking back to Judy’s, she observed, “Nice muscular butt too...”   She waited to see what Judy thought of that.</p><p> </p><p>Judy, caught between exasperation and laughter, just ground her jaw and scowled at her old partner.</p><p> </p><p>Micah chuckled for a moment before comprehension finally dawned on her tired brain, “Wait… Forestry? Is this something to do with why all the crime scenes techs disappeared yesterday?”</p><p> </p><p>Judy sat up and nodded, “Yeah. You hear about that?”</p><p> </p><p>Micah nodded, “The electronic techs were geeking out about it in the OC van last night. Lots and lots of bodies, found in a swamp.”</p><p> </p><p>Judy nodded, “Yeah, at least two dozen, in various states of decay. Mostly large predators, but I don’t have an exact break down yet. I still have to talk the M.E. about that.” Judy looked at Micah and asked, “What were you doing in an Organized Crime Surveillance unit last night?”</p><p> </p><p>Micah rubbed a paw pad in her tired eyes, “We’re doing a joint OP with them, trying to help them get somewhere on their latest Big family investigation.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh?” Judy inquired, professionally interested in the ever continuing saga of the ZPD's cold war with Mr. Big’s criminal operation. “He’s getting on in the years now, isn’t he? Isn’t he retired or something?”</p><p> </p><p>Micah snorted, “Retired my furry ass. He’s still holding high court at that drafty mansion of his, surrounded by wise-bears. She shook her head, “The rumor on the street though, is that he’s handed the reins of power over to his daughter, Fru-Fru. Not sure I believe that, though. She’s mostly involved with the day to day operations of her husband’s bakery business; making wedding cakes and shit like that.”</p><p> </p><p>She shrugged, “I dunno… Maybe she’s just as dirty as Daddy is. Not sure what she’d do with all the bodies that side of the family business would generate. Maybe she’s having her husband cremate them in his ovens.” She looked thoughtfully down at the small detective, “Or… Maybe she’s having them buried out in the backyard?...” Micah gestured to the north.</p><p> </p><p>Judy mulled that over, “Maybe… Weird MO, though.” Micah looked back at her and nodded for her to continue. “Like I said, the bodies were mostly large predators. The latest victim wasn’t even buried yet, just wrapped in a tarp. We know he was a bear, but beyond that we have no idea who he was.”</p><p> </p><p>“Why not? He not in the ZPD system?” the tigress asked.</p><p> </p><p>Judy shook her head, “No, it’s not that. He was skinned, Micah. From head to paw.” Judy motioned with her claw along her arm.</p><p> </p><p>Micah recoiled with a distasteful grimace, “Oww… Okay… Now that does sound like a mob hit, ya know. Strike fear everywhere sort of thing?”</p><p> </p><p>Judy nodded, “Yeah, kinda. Actually, there was more to it… Um… the vic was seriously underweight, and his claws were broken. Some were even missing entirely.” Judy waggle her fingers in demonstration, miming the claws being yanked out one by one.</p><p> </p><p>“Like he was being kept somewhere without food or water and being tortured?” Micah observed.</p><p> </p><p>“Maybe...” Judy shrugged, “Except that it’s kinda messy. Can you see Raymond or his cousin getting blood on their glossy white fur or their expensive suites?”</p><p> </p><p>Micah shook her head, “No, knowing that bunch you would expect them to choose something neater, like tossing their victim in the drink. You would think that if they wanted to send a message, they’d do something like that where the body can be found easily, not tucked back some swampy corner of a wildlife park.”</p><p> </p><p>Judy agreed, “Looking at the psychology of it, certainly. A killing of this nature exhibits a lot of rage, and I would surmise this sort of hit would only be reserved very special enemies. Ones where they want the victim to disappear afterwards.” She chewed on her lip for a moment before asking the tigress, “Is there some gang war going on that I don’t know about, maybe some missing bosses or something?”</p><p> </p><p>Micah shook her head in denial, “No! That’s the thing! Everything is too peaceful right now. Nothing is going down that would explain a couple of dozen bodies, nothing that I’ve heard of at least. Hell, if there was a turf war going on, OC would arrest the Bigs just to calm things down. And I’m not seeing that with any of the drugs gangs or gambling dens. Most of the drug gangs operate over the Internet these days, and gambling victims can’t pay back their debts if they’re dead, ya know?” Micah threw up her paws, “Hell, I’m not even missing any of my regular street informants, and if there was something big going on I’d expect at least one or two of them to disappear!”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, actually, speaking of informants, that’s what I wanted to pick your brain about.” Judy explained.</p><p> </p><p>“When’s the last time you talked to Duke, Micah?”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Gossip Girls</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Office Judy Hopps is busy sorting files down in the Cold Case archives when she has a surprise visit from her fellow officer and friend Micah Fangmeyer, who needs some help with a certain case involving burglarized flower shops.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Yes!  I am still alive!  I have not abandoned my stories or my work here!  I just got really busy, and ran out of free time.  But here I am, still hale and healthy, and brimming with new energy.  So for all my morose fans - the next installment of Blood Red Skies.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Zootopia ZPD: 15 years ago</p><p> </p><p>There was an inherent stillness to the place that just sang to her lapin soul. A vast cavern buried deep in the bowels of the mother city, an archive of the lives and deaths of the citizenry that walked the pavement above her head. A library, hidden in shadow, full of sordid stories of tall tales and shallow lies, epic adventures and tragic comedies.</p><p> </p><p>She had dreaded being exiled here, 6 months earlier, down here among the long lonely shelves and the dusty forgotten files. A sudden and swift end to the bright future she had envisioned as an ZPD officer valiantly serving her adopted city. On the other paw, her parents had been thrilled, even happier than the day before when she had been assigned to parking duty, even as she bemoaned her apparent demotion to file clerk. But as the days had stretched into weeks and the weeks into months, the new perspective she had been given matured into a better understanding of this proud city and her citizens, the criminals who threatened it, and the police officers who protected it.</p><p> </p><p>* * *</p><p> </p><p>Officer Judy Hopps sat at an old steel desk, scaled not for her slight frame but a slight larger and woollier herbivore, tucked back in a corner behind the ranks of drawers that held old city patrol maps. She liked sitting back here among the shelves far better out than being tucked back in that over sized office she had been shown when she first came down here, a space she had long since converted over to photographic storage.</p><p> </p><p>Out here though, she could drink in the silence, her ears perked upright as they listening for those who might come down to the cold case archives seeking her assistance. She type away on her paw-book, entering in updates to some files that had just been digitized, when her attentive ears heard the sound of a far door opening.</p><p> </p><p>With a far distant clang, a door slammed shut, but there were not further sounds to her ears. Certainly not the clopping of cloven hooves from the auxiliary officer bringing down a load of files for her to find homes for. Except for…</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>There it is… The sound of fur sliding along cardboard. She must be so lost in thought that she’s not minding her tail. </em>
  <span>Judy smiled to her self, before glancing at the clock on her paw-book. </span>
  <em>10:30 am. She’s early. What’s she up to? </em>
  <span>She waited for her fellow officer to find her.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>Officer Micah Fangmeyer, padding silently from the racks, greeting her with a quiet “Hey ya, Buns.”</p><p> </p><p>Judy looked up from her paperwork, “Hey, Micah. How are things above ground?” She looked up at the towering muscular form, clad in her implacable blues. The tigress gently laid a stack of six or seven files in Judy’s inbox, but held one back in her paws.</p><p> </p><p>“Eh… You know...” She trailed off.</p><p> </p><p>Judy pointed a claw at the stack she had just laid down, “The aux ram could have brought those down, you know?”</p><p> </p><p>Micah looked down at the stack before explaining why she was doing something so mundane as a file run, “Oh, I had to get out of the bullpen. The Chief and the Mayor Lionheart are having their weekly screaming match, and I couldn’t take the noise again.” She gestured upstairs with her file.</p><p> </p><p>Judy frowned as she sat back in her creaking chair, “The missing mammal thing again?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah,” Micah nodded, “The whole thing has dragged on for months, and the Mayor is getting more demanding. He wants to know if Chief Bogo has any leads, and the Chief just tells him no. Which we don’t, you know.”</p><p> </p><p>Judy nodded. She had filed enough of those missing mammal cases in her cold files to know there wasn’t much to go on.</p><p> </p><p>Micah continued, “It’s like they just up and left without telling anybody, but left all their stuff behind. If it was kidnapping, why hasn’t there been any ransom demands? It can’t be serial murderer – there’s no pattern to the victims. Plus it’s not like we’ve found any bodies left lying about. And if somebody was targeting predators just to eat them, well, that’s a messy process, ya know? It tends to leave evidence.” She looked down at the smaller doe.</p><p> </p><p>Judy shivered at that mental image that chased through her mind. Not at the thought of Micah eating her, though. The tigress was a strict piscatarian – she had no taste for warm blooded prey. Not that her father believed that for a hot minute. The thought of his daughter hanging out with a predator four times her size had driven him to frenzied tears when she had first described her friendship with the cat to her parents.</p><p> </p><p>So Judy just stopped telling them both about it – it just wasn’t worth the drama. But she hadn’t stopped her friendship with the feline. She found the larger cat a fine listener, especially at the end of the day when they would go down to the docks so that Micah could fish for her dinner. They would sit on the pier, Micah casting her line out into the bay, and they would watch the sunset. And talk. About their day, about cases, about life.</p><p> </p><p>She liked to think she could read the tigress now, and Judy could see she was distracted by something more than just the noise that Lionheart and Bogo had generated having their weekly masculine dominance display. She hadn’t put down the last file, holding it in her paw as she slid a claw along the card-stock face. Judy tipped an ear to point at the file and asked her, “Are you going to put that down?”</p><p> </p><p>“Huh?” The tigress looked down a her paws, “Oh… This isn’t a cold case.” She trailed off.</p><p> </p><p>“Uh-huh!” Judy waggled a claw at the larger predator, “Officer Fangmeyer, cough it up! You obviously some thing stuck in your throat, so lets hear it.” she admonished.</p><p> </p><p>“This?” Micah waved the file. Judy nodded. “Ah… this is one of those look good cases that Bogo figures could be solved quickly… Um… have you ever heard of a thief by the name of Weaselton? Duke Weaselton?” She peer down over her nose at Judy.</p><p> </p><p>Judy tilted her head back and let out a peal of laughter. Chuckling, Judy shook her head and wiped the back of her paw across her muzzle, “Yeah, I know Duke. Chasing him is what got me banished down here.” Judy waved her paws around at the shelves.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh? Oh!” Micah stood up straighter for a moment, before dropping the file to the desk and opening it. Her claw on the cover sheet, she looked back up at Judy and asked, “How do you know his name?”</p><p> </p><p>Judy gestured at the files laying on her desk, “His name pops up here and there, among the cold files, either as a witness or a perp. Just the name and a basic description. I’ve never seen any interview notes or even a basic background on him, and certainly no arrests. These are cold files, after all.”</p><p> </p><p>Micah nodded as she leafed through the pages, “Oh, he’s been arrested plenty of times – when the ZPD can catch him.”</p><p> </p><p>Judy chuckled ruefully, “Yeah… He’s a slippery one, I bet.” She looked back up at Micah, “So how did he cross your desk?”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, you know… Politics. Seems the over active weasel has been hitting up some of the mayor’s constituents, stealing stuff from their shops, and they’re getting kind vocal about the ZPD not doing anything, which just gives Lionheart more reason to yell at the Chief. So he figured why not throw the cat a bone and tossed me the case. Except...” She trailed off again.</p><p> </p><p>“Except you can’t find him?” Judy prompted her.</p><p> </p><p>Micah held up her paws in frustration, “No! It’s been two weeks. I figured it would be a quick in and out. Talk to the vics, get their side of the story, maybe I could establish a pattern, figure out where to catch him in the act.” She shook her head, “Except they don’t want to want to talk to me. Half of the shop owners start screaming about police intimidation, and the other half just run and hide. Hell, a couple of them up and went catatonic on me. I had to call in the medicos.”</p><p> </p><p>Suspicion started to boil up behind Judy’s eyes. She frowned and asked, “Um, what was he stealing again?”</p><p> </p><p>Micah scratched her head, “Flower bulbs?”</p><p> </p><p>The light dawned for Judy, “Ohhh! Flowers? Flower shops?” Micah nodded. “Staffed by herbivores, by chance?”</p><p> </p><p>“Every one of them.” Micah affirmed. “Most of them on the portly side.”</p><p> </p><p>Judy nodded, “Yeah, easy for him to filch and run without worrying about being chased. When I saw him, he had just ripped off this middle aged boar.” She looked up at her tall friend and observed, “All prey mammals? And the Boss sent you? What was he thinking?”</p><p> </p><p>Micah shrugged, “I think he was more interested in sucking up to the mayor. I’m tall, feline, and female, I guess? Except the couple of time I talked with Mayor Lionheart about this, I got the impression he kinda just looked through me. Had he done anything untoward, I would have called it sexual harassment, except that he was always very civil.”</p><p> </p><p>Judy chuckled, “No, if the Boss wanted to suck up to Lionheart that way, he would have sent Delgado.”</p><p> </p><p>Micah cocked her head and looked down at the smaller bunny, “What?! How do you know?” She immediately got what the lapin was driving at. “Really?”</p><p> </p><p>Judy nodded, “Earl, the auxiliary officer who brings me the daily files, is a terrible gossip who just loves a juicy story, and all the civil service secretaries totally adore him and just have to tell him all their secrets, which he then precedes to tell me. Anyway, the scuttlebutt in City Hall is that Lionheart has been spending a rather large amount of time down lately in a certain naturalist club. Apparently there is a masseuse there he really, really, likes. He says the panther is really good with his paws, if you catch my drift.” She winked and grinned.</p><p> </p><p>Micah reached over to the far wall and snagged a large chair. Swinging it around, she set it against the desk and sat astride it, placing her arms across the back, and resting her head on her forearms. Her head now at Judy’s level she continued with, “Huh. I had kinda thought I was being offered up as a peace offering or something.”</p><p> </p><p>Judy shrugged, “Maybe you were. Just not a sexual one. I actually don’t understand their dynamic. I really don’t. I mean, if Lionheart really hated Bogo, he could have fired him a long time ago. And if Bogo really wanted to play politics, yeah, I could see him sending in somebody like Delgado.” She turned an looked back at the quiet cat. “But he didn’t. He sent you instead. By yourself? No partner still?” Judy asked her.</p><p> </p><p>Micah let out a sigh, “Nope. Still no partner…”</p><p> </p><p>Judy turned in her chair and reached out to pat the tigress on the elbow, “You’re wasted on all this political pellet droppings. You should be off in ESWAT, swing a mean shotgun!” She grinned up at the morose cat, “First in the door, spewing lead, all go get em tiger! That sort of thing!”</p><p> </p><p>Micah looked askance at the impudent rabbit. She snorted and sat up in denial, “Except that I don’t want to be in ESWAT! I want to be a detective, not a street cop stuck on patrol duty, and certainly not some faceless armored monstrosity. I want to solve crimes and bring peace to the victims and their families! I want to be a real detective!” She pause when she realized that Judy was squinting at her, her muzzle screwed up in a scowl. “Sorry.” Micah apologized.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t we all...” Judy replied drolly. She dropper her paw to her side and swung back. “Soooo…. Back to the subject at paw. What was Mister Weaselton doing ransacking these noisy shop owners? What was he boosting? Rare heritage roses? Poppy seeds? Dandelion weed spray?” Judy just threw out some ideas.</p><p> </p><p>Micah just shook her head. Reaching over, she read the notes out loud, “Nope. He always just stole one thing, the bulbs of one particular plant in fact.” She turned to look at the rabbit, “Have you ever heard of something called Midnicampum Holicithias?”</p><p> </p><p>Judy’s ears fell down as her jaw dropped down in shock.</p>
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